More than 21,000 people in the Republic will develop cancer this year; 7,800 will die of the disease. Cancer causes one quarter of all deaths here and is the largest single cause of death for the Irish population.
Between them, the three most common cancers - breast, lung and bowel - are responsible for one half of all years of life lost due to cancer. Against this background the latest report from the National Cancer Registry is an important milestone in assessing the state of cancer care in the Republic. Among its key findings were a 33 per cent poorer survival rate for patients with breast cancer living in the Southern Health Board region and a 31 per cent poorer survival rate for female colon cancer patients living in the Western Health Board region.
The haphazard nature of cancer service provision for patients, also highlighted in recent reports from the National Cancer Registry, is indefensible. Less than 40 per cent of women with breast cancer in the Western Health Board receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment. In the South East, the numbers rise to over 55 per cent. Such geographic inequality reflects poorly on the current structuring of cancer treatment facilities in the State. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used in varying combinations and sequences in the treatment of cancer. It has been shown that patients who avail of all appropriate treatment modalities within an accepted timeframe have a much better chance of surviving cancer. It is time that every citizen had equal access to all treatments regardless of location or socio-economic status.
The average waiting time from GP referral to hospital treatment for patients with bowel and lung cancers is eight weeks. However, there are regional variations in the time spent on cancer waiting lists.
A ground-breaking paper presented by Professor Miriam Wiley of the Economic and Social Research Institute last year confirmed the haphazard nature of patient flows from one region to another. Using discharge information from public hospitals on women with breast cancer, Professor Wiley found that while most women receive surgery in the health board in which they reside, the pattern for chemotherapy is variable.
Collectively, recent data in the cancer arena reinforce the belief that there is an unacceptable level of inequality within the health system. The Minister for Health has said he will implement in full recent recommendations concerning the expansion of radiotherapy facilities. He must now expedite the publication of a new cancer strategy and promote its implementation at Cabinet.