Protesters in final bid to retain breast cancer services at Sligo hospital

SOME 200 people, the majority of them women, protested outside the Taoiseach’s department in Dublin yesterday as part of a final bid to retain all breast cancer services at Sligo General Hospital.

From August 9th breast surgery and initial diagnostic services will be transferred from Sligo to University Hospital Galway, one of the eight “centres of excellence” designated in the the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).

Wearing their county colours the women travelled by bus from Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal and Roscommon and demonstrated outside Áras an Uachtaráin and then the Taoiseach’s office on Merrion Street.

They each carried a bra and placed them on barricades. Protesters appealed to Minister for Health Mary Harney to “think like a woman and protect women”. One cancer survivor, Ita McMorrow said Sligo hospital provided a great service and that was why they had continued their campaign for the past five years.

Sligo North Leitrim Fianna Fáil TDs Dr Jimmy Devins and Eamonn Scanlan yesterday met Taoiseach Brian Cowen proposing that Sligo hospital be offered the same facility that applies to Letterkenny hospital in Donegal, which kept its services because it is networked with Galway through oversight by its surgeons. The same could apply to Sligo which was even more isolated than Donegal, he said. The Taoiseach “listened carefully and said he would go away and consider it” and respond in a few days.

However, NCCP head Prof Tom Keane said that option had been considered and rejected. In a statement the NCCP said: “The breast surgical service in Sligo General Hospital has been run on a solo basis similar to many other hospitals from where services have been transferred, with only one surgeon providing the service.

“The designation of cancer centres has allowed for teams of experts to work together on a peer basis allowing for their expertise to be concentrated and shared, ensuring that patients are seen by medical professionals whose sole remit is cancer.

“These teams are seeing a high number of patients on a weekly basis and this is an essential component to ensure their skills are developed and maintained. Sligo General Hospital had been providing surgery for around two patients a week.”

Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan said it was “geographical apartheid that has located all eight [cancer centres] in the bottom half of the country, four of which are in Dublin”.