Up to 150 people took part in a protest in Tralee, Co Kerry, yesterday against plans by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to centralise cancer services for patients in the region in Cork and Limerick. Martin Wallreports.
Community activist Brigid O'Connor, who organised yesterday's protest, said that existing cancer services in the general hospital in Tralee should be maintained and linked by modern information technology systems to the proposed new centres of excellence.
She said that plans to centralise cancer services in eight regional centres of excellence was in conflict with the Government's own decentralisation strategy which sought to move up to 10,000 civil and public servants from Dublin to smaller towns around the country.
Ms O'Connor said that the group seeking to retain cancer services in Tralee would now write to the Minister for Health Mary Harney and the recently-appointed national cancer director Prof Tom Keane.
She said that the protests to save cancer services in Tralee would continue.
Kerry is the latest part of the country to witness demonstrations against the Government's proposals to centralise cancer services. There have already been protests in Sligo and Mayo about the plan.
However, the Government and the HSE have argued that hospitals dealing with cancer care have to have a sufficient through-put of patients to ensure the best outcomes.