Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

Where one lives in Ireland is a significant determinant of whether one will survive cancer or die from it. In Ireland today counties and postcodes should have Government health warnings. When a cancer diagnosis happens in a family, a dark cloud descends. While there obviously is hope in terms of treatment, there is no doubt that for serious cancers, every moment of the day is consumed with whether or not one is going to make it. Today the Irish Cancer Society released damning information which shows significant variations with regard to access to cancer diagnostics and treatments. Life-saving chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments are being denied to patients because of where they live.

On Monday I met with doctors in Letterkenny and they told me that just 12% of cancer patients in that hospital receive treatment within the recommended 15 working day timeframe.

Patients are waiting seven to eight weeks for treatment in Galway at the moment. The National Cancer Control Programme has written to Aontú to say the HSE is failing to meet its own radiation treatment targets. In the year to August 2024, treatment targets were met only once in Galway and only once in Cork. Cancer services in the north west are being shut down and cancer services in Galway, Waterford and Limerick do not have the necessary PET scanners. We have antique radiotherapy equipment breaking down. Treatment is regularly being cancelled because certain scanners are breaking down over and over again.

I have had cancer. I know what it is like to have cancer growing inside you. I know the stress it creates. I know the first thing you want to do is to get it cut out and to get chemo to zap it if you can. I also know that delayed treatments mean radically worse outcomes for people. Delayed treatments mean cancer can spread throughout your body. People are dying in this country for the want of treatment. The Irish Cancer Society has said that the Government has met only one of the six targets it set itself.

Aontú has also discovered that there is a 12% differential in breast cancer survival rates in public and private hospitals in this country. A woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer in a designated centre has an 85% chance of survival. If she is diagnosed in another public hospital, she has an 81% chance of surviving but if she is diagnosed in a private hospital, she has a 93% chance of survival. If you diagnosed with breast cancer in Sweden, you are 7% more likely to survive than if you had been diagnosed in this State. If you are diagnosed with breast cancer in England, you are 5% more likely to survive than in this country. It is an incredible situation. When is the system going to stop dividing patients by postcode and income? When is the HSE going to deliver cancer treatments on an equal basis throughout the country?

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