Removal of cancer services a 'moral' issue

A SILENT vigil will be held outside Sligo General Hospital on Good Friday to highlight what a local consultant has described as the "disenfranchisement" of the people of the region.

Campaigners opposed to the downgrading of cancer services at the hospital have pledged to take the battle to the European Parliament amid furious local reaction to cancer chief, Prof Tom Keane's assertion that the debate about Sligo is now over.

Local consultant surgeon Tim O'Hanrahan, who warned that cancer patients would suffer if the hospital is downgraded, said there had been no debate.

"The reality is that Prof Keane will be gone in two years and we will be left to pick up the pieces," said Mr O'Hanrahan, who moved to Sligo eight years ago after the O'Higgins report earmarked it as a centre for breast cancer care.

Senior local figures in Fianna Fáil have been expressing anger at the Government's refusal to budge on the issue, with Sligo-based Junior Health Minister Jimmy Devins coming under huge pressure. Mr Devins is in New Zealand where he has been attending St Patrick's Day celebrations, and it is unclear whether he will be attending Friday's vigil.

Senator Marc MacSharry said it had never been Fianna Fáil's policy to seek to deprive the people of the northwest of a service which was available in every other part of the State and he asked why and when party policy on this had changed.

Mr MacSharry's father, former EU Commissioner Ray MacSharry, made an emotional plea for the retention of services in Sligo while addressing mourners - including the Taoiseach - at his wife Elaine's funeral last January.

Two Fine Gael councillors from the region, Sligo-based Imelda Henry and Barry O'Neill, who are organising Friday's rally, have asked party MEP Jim Higgins to take the fight to Europe. Mr Henry said they believed that a case could be made through the parliament's petitions committee on the basis of discrimination, given that no centre of excellence exists north of the Dublin/Galway line.

The Fianna Fáil chairman of Sligo County Council, a former director of elections for the party, has said that there is huge disappointment among members with the party hierarchy "from the Taoiseach down".

Mr O'Hanrahan - who has been a vocal campaigner on the matter - said he believed this was a "moral" issue.

"I think the people of the region are being disenfranchised," he said, adding that he had seen no evidence that a better standard of care would be provided to them under the HSE's proposals.

He said it was "disingenuous" of Prof Keane to say that people had already started voting with their feet in choosing where to attend for treatment because, while this may have happened in Portlaoise, it was not the case in Sligo.

Asked when he expected services to be moved from Sligo to Galway, he said: "I know as much as you, but the latest pronouncement is that it will be at the end of this year. I feel Sligo is a prime target now as it is considered an area of dissent."

Mr O'Hanarahan said he believed the people of the northwest who "pay the same taxes as everyone else" deserve a fair crack of the whip. "Why should people who are sick be forced to travel an extra 120 miles for a service which is already here?"