Dáil debates

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

Cancer Services: Statements (Resumed).

 

5:00 pm

Photo of John O'MahonyJohn O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on cancer services. I sympathise with all the women in the midlands and their families who are going though unbearable trauma as they face the agony of being rescreened and await the results. The Minister and the Government introduced the new cancer strategy and centres of excellence with great fanfare a couple of months ago. It was as if everything was going to be top class and the term "world class" was being talked about. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen one scare after another, with no one taking the blame but many dishing it out.

Alongside these crises we see the cancer services in my constituency, Mayo, which were developed to the excellent standards other centres aspire to, being withdrawn under the new proposals. When my party leader raised this matter a couple of weeks ago, he was accused of scaremongering, yet neither the Minister nor the HSE has contradicted his assertions in this regard, except to dispute the timescale. Mayo General Hospital is currently providing a top quality specialised treatment service, and this should continue within the proposed new structure as a managed cancer network, like the Mayo Clinic model in the United States. The Mayo Clinic is the parent centre and the surrounding hospitals provide high quality audited oncological practices, working through protocols for patient care decided at multidisciplinary meetings.

The people of County Mayo have the utmost confidence in the services being provided by the excellent team led by Mr. Kevin Barry and Mr. Ronan Waldron in Mayo General Hospital. The consultants and their team have meticulously built up this centre of excellence during the years. They work in co-operation with Galway and will do so into the future, but they passionately want to retain the services in Mayo. Dr. Brendan Drumm praised the services when he visited the hospital earlier this year. An audit of Mayo General Hospital is scheduled for next April, but the problem is that some of the services may be gone by the time it reports. Here is something that is in place, which does not demand any extra cost in terms of new resources, which fits into the proposed centre of excellence model, as proposed, and has the support of the people. Will the Government and the Minister not take the easy decision and keep these services in Mayo? Up to 10,000 people marched in Castlebar last Sunday week and I have no doubt, if there is not a positive answer from the Minister and the Government in the weeks to come, there will be many more than 10,000 outside the gates of Leinster House.

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