A DOCTOR working for the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada is to be the new director of the State’s National Cancer Control Programme.
The appointment of Dr Susan O’Reilly, a medical oncologist, to the post was confirmed yesterday by the HSE. She had been tipped to succeed Prof Tom Keane since he finished his two-year term of office earlier this year.
Dr O’Reilly, who grew up in Wales and studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin, is currently the vice president of cancer care at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver.
Appointed in 2005, she has been responsible for strategy, financial planning and delivery of both medical and operational components of all clinical programmes for cancer patients in five centres.
She will take up her new role in early September and will be on a salary of €237,000, the HSE said. This is similar to what hospital consultants treating public patients only expected to be paid when they signed up to new contracts.
During Prof Keane’s two-year term as head of the State’s cancer control programme, the diagnosis and surgical treatment of breast cancer was centralised into eight designated cancer centres.
His successor will now be charged with continuing to develop rapid access clinics for the diagnosis of lung and prostate cancer, centralising rectal cancer surgery and centralising pancreatic cancer surgery at Dublin’s St Vincent’s hospital. Overseeing the expansion of radiation oncology facilities and ensuring target waiting times set for diagnosis and treatment of symptomatic breast cancer patients continue to be met will also be central to her role.
HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm said Dr O’Reilly would will bring great experience, expertise and leadership to the continued transformation and development of cancer services.
Minister for Health Mary Harney welcomed the appointment. “Dr O’Reilly is one of foremost leaders of cancer control in Canada and I am confident she will build on the achievements of the National Cancer Control Programme that we have seen under the leadership of Prof Tom Keane,” she said.