HSE urged to site centre of excellence in north-west

CANCER SERVICES:CANCER PATIENTS in the northwest should not have to travel any further for treatment in centres of excellence than those in any other part of the State, the Green Party conference heard.

Delegates backed a call for the HSE to review the proposed centre of excellence locations to include the north-west.

Garreth McDaid, of Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon Greens, also called for accommodation facilities to be in place before patients were required to travel to the new centres.

Mr McDaid said the Greens recognised generally that this was the way to go. "We cannot allow it to be political," he said, but he added: "No compelling argument has been made to the residents of the north-west as to why two centres of excellence should be located 90 minutes apart when they are being asked to travel distances of two and three hours to access the same standard of care."

Cllr Tom Kivlehan, of Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown, said the Dublin hospitals had agreed that they needed three centres of excellence, not four - one for every 500,000 people. The fourth should be in the north-west, he said.

He told the conference that his sister and aunt had suffered from cancer but lived within 20 minutes of St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. If they had been living in the north-west it would have been extremely difficult, he added.

"If patients have to travel for four hours, it takes away from their ability to recover."

Martin O'Keeffe, of Cork East, said that the north-west should not have to suffer "just because you're away from the centre of power and have mediocre political representation".

He said that the HSE now wanted to "take away what little cancer care they have in the north-west". This was not Green policy and not what the Greens supported.