Call to keep cancer centre funds from HSE

THE BUDGET for the centres of excellence treating cancer patients should be kept separate from the "marauding hands" of the Health Service Executive (HSE), former FF minister Mary O'Rourke said.

"It could later indicate it does not know where the budget has gone, or that it has been allocated to some other subhead.

"This must be kept for Prof Tom Keane, whom I have not met, for its purpose in setting up the centres of excellence. He sounds utterly sensible."

Ms O'Rourke said that she had no time for the HSE, "as nobody appears responsible for anything when we call them".

She added: "We are passed from Billy to Joe to Jack to Mary, and in the end we do not get a reply. Answers to parliamentary questions are disgraceful.

"I sometimes forget the question by the time I get an answer because the matter has been going on so long." Ms O'Rourke was speaking during a debate on reports relating to the misdiagnosis of cancer at the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise.

Minister for Health Mary Harney said that the HSE's decision to designate four managed cancer control networks and eight cancer centres would be implemented on a managed and phased basis.

"The HSE plans to have completed 50 per cent of the transition of services to cancer centres by the end of 2008 and 80 per cent to 90 per cent by the end of 2009.

"Prof Keane is in discussion with the HSE to take control of all new cancer developments and, progressively, all existing cancer services and related funding and staffing." Ms Harney said that the designation of cancer centres aimed to ensure patients received the highest quality care while allowing local access to services, where appropriate.

"Where diagnosis and treatment planning is directed and managed by multidisciplinary teams, based at the cancer centres, much of the treatment, other than surgery, can be delivered in local hospitals." Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter said that the Minister, HSE management and those employed in the health service could not be free of blame.

"They must be accountable for the service they deliver to the public and recognise their responsibility. If something goes wrong, there must be accountability. If there is none, there will be further scandals and tragedies as a consequence of the HSE's failures." Labour health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said that although the Minister spoke eloquently, unfortunately eloquence and fine words did not deliver an excellent health service.

"It seems likely that Deputy Harney will remain as Minister for Health after the incoming taoiseach takes office in two weeks.

"It is almost unbelievable that the reason she will remain as Minister is that no one else wants the job. No one else, in the very large Fianna Fáil party, or in the Green Party, wants the job." Ms O'Sullivan said this was an appalling indictment of the Government.

Dáil Sinn Féin leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said it had been revealed that public patients were still facing waiting times of up to a year-and-a-half for vital tests on suspected cancers, including colonoscopy examinations.

"This is in spite of the false promises made by the Minister and the Taoiseach on improvements in cancer care, especially in the area of diagnostics," he said.