Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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268. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide an update on the availability of scalp-cooling services in the oncology ward of the Mater Hospital, which was previously curtailed on infection control advice related to Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25396/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The HSE's National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) advise that the provision of systemic anti-cancer therapies (SACT) for patients with cancer can include many other additional elements to support the patient in the management of adverse effects associated with their treatment. Scalp cooling is an example of one such supportive care measure.

There are 26 public hospitals providing SACT in Ireland. A patient’s consultant will consider each patient’s supportive care requirements, taking into account the individual patient, their treatment, and the evidence relating to the supportive care measure.

There is no clinical consensus on the use of scalp cooling as a supportive care measure for patients with cancer undergoing SACT. It is made available in some of these hospitals, based on suitability of the patient, local availability of equipment, service needs and capacity.

The NCCP advises that discussions are on-going in relation to setting up a scalp cooling service in the Mater Hospital with staffing and capacity issues in mind.

There has never been a scalp cooling service available in the oncology ambulatory care department in the Mater Hospital and while there has been some discussion, the establishment of this service is staffing and capacity dependent.