Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This motion asks the Minister for Health and Children to ensure adequate funds are made available to Sligo General Hospital for the operation of a bus bringing patients for cancer treatment to University College Hospital Galway, UCHG, from the €750,000 fund announced as ring-fenced for such purposes by Professor Tom Keane.

The Minister of State will recall very well the personified anger and the depth of this justified anger and disappointment in the people of Sligo and the north west following the transfer of cancer services to UCHG. I could probably filibuster for a day and a half on the issue. The HSE as a whole, with a centralising approach to plans, pathology and categorisation seems to have a policy, from the perspective of the people who live in Sligo and the north west, of the people moving closer or dying.

Notwithstanding this, we are where we are and there is an intolerable position where a bus brings patients for treatment to University College Hospital in Galway each day. A new bus is to be delivered very shortly and from that, given budget cutbacks enforced on the hospital, the hospital and friends of the hospital who will purchase the bus must secure operating costs for the vehicle on an ongoing basis in the region of €70,000. The budgetary constraints mean the hospital must seek the funds from third party sources.

The hospital applied to the Irish Cancer Society for funding as it is the group administering the €750,000 fund which Professor Tom Keane indicated would be available for travel and transport services for patients travelling to cancer treatment in University College Hospital in Galway. On doing so, Ms Mairead Lyons on behalf of the Irish Cancer Society informed the Friends of Sligo General Hospital that it could not fund the programme without the permission of the national cancer control programme. This was duly sought and declined in writing last week by Dr. Mary Hynes of the programme on the basis that it was not part of what is known as the travel to care scheme, whereby people make their own way to treatment and claim back money, or the care to drive programme. That programme is idealistic, however beneficial it might be in its intentions, and is being rolled out for St. Vincent's Hospital, although not throughout the country. Volunteers are expected to come forward to drive people to hospital.

If we have a fund of €750,000 and a bus in place that can bring people for treatment, notwithstanding the discomfort and injustice being perpetrated on the people of the north west, why are we trying to roll out new schemes with the money? That money is required for the operation of the existing bus. The argument from the Department is that the bus always brought people for radiotherapy. Since the transfer of other cancer services, people are going to UCHG to use that facility for many cancer related treatments other than radiotherapy. Rather than being foolish about this we should use our common sense and prioritise. If there is no money to run the bus, the €750,000 should be used to run the bus.

On a temporary basis and at an absolute minimum I appeal to the Minister of State to ensure the €750,000 as announced by Professor Tom Keane and administered on behalf of the HSE and others by the Irish Cancer Society is made available to groups such as the Friends of Sligo General Hospital to try to minimise the stress and pain on those people who must travel to Galway. It should be made available for that purpose. I appeal that this be done immediately pending permanent budgetary arrangements. The money must be made available to people.

I cannot overestimate how annoyed the people of the north west are because of how they have been treated in the transfer of all these services. To say to them under the auspices of a letter from Dr. Mary Hynes that they would get no funding to help the running of the bus is nothing short of a urination on the people of the area in which I live. I appeal to the Minister of State to take the only common sense approach that is justified by instructing the HSE and national cancer control programme to tell the Irish Cancer Society to administer this fund thoughtfully to ensure groups such as the Friends of Sligo General Hospital have adequate funding for the running of the bus.