Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are proposals for major capital developments at Sligo Regional Hospital in the coming years. As such I expect that at some point I will be meeting with the hospital group and management at Sligo Regional Hospital. This development is in the mix for the next five year capital plan.

By way of clarification, the powers delegated to the HSE are not delegated by the Department of Health rather they are delegated by the Oireachtas under the Health Acts. The Oireachtas in its wisdom decided ten or 11 years ago that service decisions should best be made by clinicians, the HSE and hospital groups rather than by politicians.

The group has informed me by way of briefing note that following an evaluation by it, re-establishment of the Sligo service would no longer be feasible for two reasons. First, there is concern that the potential for fragmentation of the service would not be in the best clinical interests of patients given it is now more than five years since the service was ceased and women who are already receiving follow-up in Galway will continue to avail of this option. Second, there is no longer a consultant radiology back-up in Sligo Regional Hospital and, therefore, any woman requiring further investigation from a mammogram would need to travel to Galway for this service, with the potential of a further delay in intervention. The group has also said that in order for radiographers trained in mammography to continue to perform their role they must meet quality assurance standards and a minimum number of examinations per annum. There are insufficient numbers of surveillance follow-up patients that would require mammography in Sligo Regional Hospital to maintain the radiographers' skill-set. As Minister, it is hard for me to ignore that.

I am sure the Deputy will agree with me that patient safety must always come before politics and that clinical outcomes must always come before convenience. I hope we can agree on that. I would be happy to see mammograms carried out at Sligo Regional Hospital. I have no objection to that and would be happy to see that service provided again but this would have to be on the ground that it does not compromise patient safety and does not reduce clinical outcomes.

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