Cancer services in the midlands are to be spread among three hospitals as a result of an alliance between health board members from Portlaoise and Mullingar.
Members of the Midland Health Board from those areas voted overwhelmingly yesterday against the centralising of cancer treatment services in Tullamore General Hospital.
The amendment, forwarded by Senator Camillus Glynn (FF), called for new consultant posts and back-up services to be distributed between the three hospitals at Tullamore, Portlaoise and Mullingar.
A petition with more than 26,000 signatures was presented to the chairman of the health board, Mr Martin Rohan, before yesterday's meeting.
It had been drawn up in protest at what locals saw as a plan to downgrade cancer services at Portlaoise General Hospital. Last Saturday more than 6,000 people attended a rally in the town. The amendment proposed that Portlaoise be designated the "lead centre" for oncology in the midlands, where it is "already most developed". It said the new medical oncologist should also have sessions in Mullingar and Tullamore.
It called for the appointment of a histopathologist based mainly in Tullamore and the appointment of a consultant haematologist in Mullingar. A consultant microbiologist was proposed for Portlaoise Hospital. Chemotherapy, according to Senator Glynn, should be based in Portlaoise and Mullingar.
Dr Sean Murphy, a consultant in Mullingar Hospital, said he welcomed the additional cancer services proposed in the report, and a further report on pathology services for the region. In their original form, he said, Tullamore would be the preferred hospital in the region.
He said that would have obvious consequences for the hospitals in Mullingar and Portlaoise, which would be downgraded. He said that "old, jaded dogma" from the 1960s, when the Fitzgerald report on hospitals recommended the closure of the hospitals in Portlaoise and Mullingar, was still being circulated.
Ms Katherine Samuels, an Athlone-based nurse, said she supported the recommendations of the original report. Equity of service for patients was an important consideration. A centre of excellence would be built up in Tullamore, which was necessary for the effective treatment of cancer.
The health board chief executive officer, Mr Denis Doherty, said that for 30 years the Midland Health Board had been characterised by "faction fighting and internal strife". During that time the board had suffered greatly, he said, and was still attempting to catch up on the other seven health boards.
He said the original report did not mean a reduction of services in the three hospitals but involved the creation of a number of new consultant posts.
"They are not being in any way downgraded. The opposite is the truth. For the first time we will have available a range of specialist staff to deal with all the common cancers and the facility to provide chemotherapy for over 80 per cent of patients.".
He spoke of the difficulties of having three important hospitals in an area serving a population of 200,000 people.
Mr John Moloney TD (FF), supporting the amendment, said he wanted to make it clear that the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, who is from Tullamore, had no involvement in the commissioning or the recommendations of the report.