A NUMBER of extra staff are to be appointed soon to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick to increase its capacity to deliver cancer services, Minister for Health Mary Harney confirmed yesterday.
Her comments came a day after the report of an investigation into the misdiagnosis of breast cancer patient Rebecca O'Malley noted the hospital was under-resourced in a number of areas.
The report said there was significant competition for access to theatre time and beds and there appeared to be shortages of staff in the radiology and pathology departments. It added that clinical staff reported spending a lot of time engaged in activity aimed at securing the resources they needed to deliver their service.
Ms Harney said the director of cancer control, Prof Tom Keane, had done "a needs assessment" of the eight designated cancer centres across the State, including Limerick, and identified what the deficiencies were.
"He is making resources available to bring those centres up to the standard that's required and specifically in relation to Limerick, I understand he has identified the need for three new consultants, the need for a data manager . . . and I think a nurse," she said.
Ms O'Malley, a mother of three from Ballina, Co Tipperary, attended the Limerick hospital in 2005 and a breast biopsy taken from her and sent to Cork University Hospital (CUH) for analysis was incorrectly reported as benign. She wasn't correctly diagnosed for a further 14 months.
The investigation into her misdiagnosis found the error at CUH might not in itself have led to a delay in diagnosis for Ms O'Malley had a fully functioning multi-disciplinary review meeting about her case been held at the Limerick hospital.
The chairwoman of the inquiry into breast cancer care at Barrington's private hospital in Limerick, Dr Henrietta Campbell, dismissed claims by the hospital that it was just being cautious when it removed lumps from women's breasts unnecessarily.
Dr Campbell said no woman should undergo breast surgery such as a lumpectomy without first having a triple assessment.