The construction of a highly specialised £30 million cancer centre at Belfast City Hospital will benefit cancer patients in the Republic, delegates at a conference in Letterkenny were told yesterday.
As part of the national cancer strategy adopted in 1996 it was agreed to develop further links between the North Western Health Board and Belfast City Hospital for the treatment of cancer patients. For patients from Donegal, one major attraction of links with Belfast is that journey times are half those to Dublin.
The new Belfast cancer centre will be among the leading facilities of its kind in the world, and will be to the forefront for research.
Speaking at the Irish Hospital of the Future conference, organised by the NWHB, Mr Quentin Coey, chief executive of the Belfast City Hospital Trust, said there was an enormous fund of good will in the United States and Europe to underpin the peace process, and cross-Border co-operation in the health sector could bring considerable dividends.