Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

The HSE south relocated the initial diagnostic and surgical symptomatic breast care services from Kerry General Hospital to Cork University Hospital, CUH, in October 2008. At the time, Professor Tom Keane made a commitment that follow up mammography screening for those patients who had undergone surgery at CUH would be carried out at Kerry General Hospital, KGH, and that the necessary facilities, including the provision of a new digital mammography machine to be purchased following the decommissioning of the existing machine, would be put in place for that purpose. This occurred in March 2009.

Women who had undergone surgery at CUH and who were then obliged to travel to Cork for follow up care began to contact me with regard to the promised digital mammography unit in Tralee. In response to their concerns, I wrote to both the hospital network manager of the HSE south and the general manager of KGH seeking an update on the replacement of the mammography machine. On 28 May 2009, the General Manager of KGH indicated that a digital mammography unit would be installed in the following few weeks and that the service would then recommence. On 3 June 2009, in a response from the hospital network manager of the HSE south, I was informed that:

[F]ollowing decommissioning of the existing digital mammography machine at KGH, a new digital mammography machine has been purchased at a cost of €340,000 by the NCCP and technical plans are being finalized for its installation and commissioning at KGH. This work will take approximately three weeks to complete. Mammography radiography staff from CUH will attend at KGH on a weekly basis, as required, and a digital link will also be installed which will enable scans to be reported by Consultant Radiologists at CUH. Mammography radiography staff from Cork University Hospital, CUH, were to attend at Kerry General Hospital, KGH, on a weekly basis, as required, and a digital link would also be installed which would enable scans to be reported by consultant radiologists at CUH. This, however, has not happened.

This week in The Kerryman, Marisa Reidy wrote:

Four months after the HSE announced it was making space within the radiology room at Kerry General Hospital for a long-promised mammography machine, it has emerged the executive is still no closer to installing the cancer-screening unit. The news comes almost eight months after the HSE wrote to The Kerryman confirming that a new digital mammography machine would be installed and commissioned in KGH within "three to four weeks" — and almost a year and a half since it first promised such facilities would be made available to the women of Kerry.

Despite assurances from the HSE last October that the machine would be operational once additional space had been created within the radiology room, KGH is still no closer to having the machine installed. Following another query from The Kerryman this week as to the status of the long-awaited machine, it emerged that the required space has still not been created, as a contractor assesses what the HSE terms this "specialist programme of works."

A HSE letter sent to The Kerryman this week, advises, "that a contractor has now been secured to carry out the installation works required for this project which will comprise creation of additional space within the radiology department to accommodate the size of the new unit. As this is a relatively specialist programme of works, the selected contractor is currently liaising with technical services at Kerry General Hospital to comprehensively scope and confirm the programme of works required," the letter concluded.

The HSE would not be drawn on an exact date for installation, but moved to assure the public that once installed, mammography radiography staff from CUH will attend at KGH on a weekly basis, as required, and a digital link will also be installed which will enable scans to be reported by consultant radiologists at CUH.

This matter has gone on for far too long. There were major protests in Kerry against the removal of this unit to CUH. Eventually, the people of Kerry accepted it on condition that after-care services would be provided immediately at KGH. This has not occurred despite these commitments. It is most unfair on the large number of Kerry women who must go to Cork for surgery and, in the future, for screening, which is a simple 20 minute procedure.

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