A network of ICA branches in Co Donegal is leading a campaign to save the breast cancer treatment unit at Letterkenny General Hospital. A letter sent this week to the Minister for Health demanded that the unit be retained and upgraded if necessary.
Fears over the future of the unit have been growing since the publication of a report by a sub-group of the National Cancer Forum advocating the centralisation of breast cancer services in each health board area.
Sligo was selected as a "centre of excellence" in the north-west in the report written by Prof Niall O'Higgins.
All 33 guilds of the Irish Countrywomen's Association in Co Donegal are part of the campaign to ensure the Letterkenny unit is not downgraded as services in Sligo are improved. Protest letters have been sent to the c.e.o. of the North Western Health Board and local politicians, and petitions organised.
Ms Mary Gillan of the Carndonagh branch of the ICA, who was herself treated at the unit in Letterkenny, said it was not acceptable to ask women to make journeys to Sligo, which can take up to three hours from parts of Donegal.
"Why scrap something that is working well? We said in our letter to the Minister that the unit in Letterkenny has done Trojan work. It is not an option to move it to Sligo, particularly for women in the northern part of Donegal where there isn't any public transport to Sligo," Ms Gillan said.
Ms Anne Hayden, the president of the Donegal federation of the ICA, said: "A lot of people don't have private transport, and women attending the unit can do without the extra stress of travelling long journeys."
In their letter to the Minister, Mr Martin, the women also expressed their anger that the north-west was to be the last area where a programme of free screening for women over 50 will be introduced. This has already started in the Eastern, North Eastern and Midlands health board areas.
"They say they want to see what the take-up is like in other areas first, but by the time it gets around to us there might have been people who needed it and it will be too late for them," said Ms Hayden.
A 35-year-old woman who had to wait six months for an appointment at the unit in Letterkenny said that, while she accepted hers was not classified as an urgent case, the long wait caused distress to her and her family.
"They could do with upgrading the service in Letterkenny. The answer is not to move it to Sligo," she said.
A statement issued by the breast unit in Letterkenny General Hospital last month said that while clinics were held on alternate Tuesdays each month, patients with "suspicious" breast problems did not have to wait for these clinics, but would be "seen within three/four days of referral by their GP".
The report recommending the centralisation of services says the population of the North Western Health Board area "supports only one unit".
It says in Letterkenny there is "a committed group of people providing a service, but they do not have a large enough volume of patients" and "they will need to link with Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry in order to increase caseload, experience, expertise and formal cross-over".
It says this sort of decision has to be supported at the highest political level.
A spokesman at the Department of Health said the new policy aimed to give the best service nationally and not to be compromised by local considerations. He said that while Sligo had been chosen as a centre of excellence, this did not mean services in Letterkenny would be scaled back.
In a statement yesterday, the North Western Health Board confirmed that preliminary discussions had taken place between senior staff and representatives from the Northern Ireland services "to consider the options for delivery of services within the framework proposed in the O'Higgins report.
"Considerable further works are required to be done in this area and will receive high priority in the first part of this year," it said.