Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

We all read in the newspapers this morning about the unfortunate case of the diagnosis of bowel cancer in a woman, the results of which she was not given until she went for a routine check-up a year later. Yesterday the hospital in question agreed a settlement with her and apologised, saying the error was due to a systems failure. Last week we had a lengthy and good debate on oncology services. We on the Government side remarked on how good our services were, but good services are no use if the hospital system fails to support them. I ask the Leader for a debate after Christmas to review systems in all our hospitals because I sat on inquiries during my five years on medical councils where hospital failures resulted in fatalities and it is not good enough. We owe it to patients to do something about it.