TDs told to ensure no cut-backs

TDs told to ensure no cut-backs in Galway cancer services


Anton McNulty

GOVERNMENT TDs have been urged to make sure that funding for cancer services are not cut after revelations that University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) may not be able to function as one of the eight cancer care centres of excellence.
The cancer care controversy raised its head again last week when in a leaked document, the general manager of UCHG, Bridget Howley, warned of the risks to patients and staff that will arise from a reduction of a budget. It said that management at UCHG have informed the HSE that they will have no choice but to withdraw from the scheme in the coming weeks if they are compelled to implement further cutbacks.
Galway University Hospitals – comprising UHG in the city centre and Merlin Park Hospital – were instructed to make cutbacks of €15 million this year, reducing the budget from €288 million to €273 million. Cuts of €9 million were carried out and hospital management told the HSE that any further cuts would result in frontline services being seriously affected. However, Galway University Hospitals were instructed some weeks ago to find savings of €6 million between now and the end of the year.
A spokesperson for the HSE emphatically denied that the cancer care service at UCHG were under-threat while Mary McGreal (pictured), who campaigned unsuccessfully for the retention of the cancer services in Mayo General Hospital, called on government TDs to ensure that no funding is taken away from these services.
She told The Mayo News that she was ‘horrified and disgusted’ to think the cutbacks could deprive the west of Ireland of a centre of excellence, and was very wary of the HSE’s statements reassuring there would be no cut-backs to the service.
“I was totally disgusted when I heard the news when you think of the campaign we had to keep the services in Mayo General Hospital. The take-up and the transition to Galway had been successful and I would be horrified to think there would now be no centre of excellence. If Galway doesn’t work we would want it back in Castlebar. If it is not a centre of excellence it will put people who need treatment in a vulnerable position. People who need urgent treatment will be put on waiting lists and I fear by the time some people would get treatment, it would be too late for some.
“If this news broke last week before the elections, the government would have been rocked back altogether. The health service is taking a walloping but why is the west getting the most cutbacks compared to the east. I would call on our government TDs who voted for this cancer strategy to make sure that there are no cuts to the service and ensure that funds are made available,” she said. 
Chris Kane, regional co-ordinator for the HSE’s Western Hospital Group, the recipient of Tuesday’s letter from Ms Howley, insisted last week that ‘there were absolutely no plans to curtail cancer services’ in Galway, and that the centre of excellence for cancer treatment at GUH was going ahead.
She said the leaked letter was a ‘discussion paper only’, and added ‘it was never agreed’.