John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too would like to raise the issue of mastectomies, which was raised in the Dáil by Deputy Colm Burke and in this House yesterday. I am bringing this to the attention of the House because of Alison McCabe from Dundalk in County Louth. Alison runs Breastcare by Alison and it is her job to fit people for bras following mastectomies. Until today, various parts of this country had different funding levels, depending on whether people lived in Donegal, Louth, Cork or Dublin. That was not fair. The Government is now trying to introduce a standardised approach which seems fair and makes sense.

However, the approach the Government wants to take is a lot less than what is currently being offered, in particular in Louth. At the minute, anyone in County Louth who has gone through breast cancer is entitled to two post-surgery bras, one prosthetic, one swimming prosthetic - two if they have had bilateral surgery - and one post-surgery swimsuit. Under the new scheme that is meant to go nationwide, that will be reduced to €60 towards a post-surgery bra and €200 towards a prosthesis.

Some of the proposed changes have been outlined by Alison McCabe who said that having ladies receive their first fit following surgery in the acute hospital where the surgery took place is a very unrealistic aspiration as the breast care teams in hospital that she deals with are under extreme pressures and do not have sufficient stocks to fulfil requirements in a hospital setting. She said the change is aimed to ensure service users who are post-mastectomy do not experience an increased financial burden in accessing these items, but the reduction in the allowance for these ladies will have the complete opposite effect. Furthermore, she said the proposal does not include products for sporting, swimming, running and other activities. Swimming prosthetics and post-surgery services are currently available to post-surgery ladies, but the proposed changes will remove this element. Alison went on to ask, given that these ladies are not entitled to get into a swimming pool with their kids, if they are not entitled to engage in swimming which actually lessens the prospect of cancer coming back through the lymph nodes that have been removed.

I understand what we are trying to do and this is not necessarily something that has been done by the Minister. Rather, it is due to bureaucracy in the HSE. This happened in 2017 when the HSE tried to do the same thing. The then Minister, Deputy Harris, said, "When I became aware of the current changes, I intervened and their introduction is now deferred ... It is essential that every woman in this country in receipt of post-operative and cancer treatment supports continues to receive them" and that he wanted to be very clear, as Minister for Health, that there cannot be cuts in this area.

I am not criticising the Government or Minister for Health, who I think is doing a very good job. This is a bureaucratic decision that is being made by the HSE. This is now the third time since 2016 that there has been an attempt to make a decision and on each successive occasion a Minister had to step in. I agree with a cross-island approach to this. That is correct. There is no need to cut the services people now have in order to achieve a cross-island approach.

This is something that is very dear to my heart, in particular over the past 12 months. I have been a very strong advocate for cancer services, in particular in my county of Louth. This is something I am concerned about and I am glad the Senator before me and Senators from other parties have raised this issue. I am looking for a lot of cross-party support on this issue.