CAMPAIGNERS FOR better cancer services in the northwest have raised €240,000 for a coach to take patients to Galway.
The new service, which will be launched in Sligo on Thursday, “would never have happened without the efforts of patients”, according to the chairman of the society which acquired the 28-seater Mercedes coach.
“They did not want other patients to go through what they had to go through,” said Gerry McManus, chairman of the Friends of Sligo Hospital.
“The old bus just wasn’t suitable, so much so that people had stopped using it,” he said.
Two cancer survivors, Catriona McGoldrick and Valerie Finan from Sligo, vowed to fight for a new bus after travelling to Galway for treatment in summer of 2008.
“Three of the 19 people who were on the bus with us have died since so . . . we are very conscious of how little comfort they had at what turned out to be the end of their lives,” said Ms McGoldrick. Despite the best efforts of the driver, most patients had to share double seats, which meant they were cramped for the 2½-hour journey.
“Our immune systems were very low and if someone coughed you were terrified. The toilet was totally unsuitable, it was not wheelchair accessible . . . no rails to hold on to and it was very difficult and embarrassing especially for men with prostrate cancer who had no choice but to use it.”
Ms Finan explained that on the existing bus people who were dehydrated and burned after radiotherapy were rubbing off one another, which was painful, especially during one hot spell that summer when the air conditioning was out of order. “It was not human; we were roasted.”
After a public outcry and an undertaking from then minister for health Mary Harney, €170,000 of National Lottery funding was allocated for the new bus in 2008, but this was insufficient.
Additional cash was finally secured, with Cancer Care West contributing €50,000.
