Cancer chief indicates interest in HSE post

THE DIRECTOR of the national cancer control programme has given a strong indication that he is interested in the post of chief executive of the Health Service Executive .

In an interview on RTÉ's News at Oneyesterday, Prof Tom Keane said that he was happy to engage in a dialogue about the position.

The chief executive of the HSE, Prof Brendan Drumm, is due to leave the organisation in the summer at the end of his five-year term. The post of chief executive was advertised before Christmas and the closing date for applications was last Friday.

In the interview, Prof Keane said he had not been offered the job but that he had had “some discussions with people”.

He said the HSE was a much-maligned organisation but when a patient got into the system, the level of care was very good. “If it came about that I was in a position to contribute to that I would still consider it,” he said.

Prof Keane said while applications had been invited for the post, a head-hunting arrangement to locate potential candidates had also been put in place.

He also said while he had not made any decisions about the position, he had “a very strong interest in what happens here”.

Prof Keane was originally recruited by Minister for Health Mary Harney on a two-year secondment from the British Columbia Cancer Agency to introduce major reforms to the delivery of cancer care in Ireland.

Ministers have been impressed with his performance in introducing changes including the centralisation of breast cancer care into eight regional centres.

Prof Keane was due to return to Canada in a few weeks.

In his interview yesterday, he said he was happy that most of what he had wanted to do in the two-year period had been accomplished.

He said that while misdiagnoses in breast cancers, as experienced in a number of centres in Ireland in recent years, would never be completely eliminated, the aim was to reduce the number to an absolute minimum.

“By the very nature of the subjective nature of the diagnostic process, there will always be some cases [of misdiagnosis].”

He also said the increasing cost of drugs in Ireland – not just in the field of cancer but across the health sector – was unsustainable.

He said there was a need for a more rigorous process of evaluation to decide which drugs were cost effective and which were not.

“We spent €22 million on herceptin for breast cancer,” Prof Keane added. “Everybody will admit that that has been a huge step forward and there is no question that that is being done under very rigorous evidence-based conditions. But there are many other drugs that have not been put under the microscope when introduced and I think that we are going to have to have a process to do that.”