Madam, - We in Donegal are used to being last in the queue for many services (Breast Check will eventually reach us, we are assured). The population has lived with unemployment and poverty, but the downgrading of services at Letterkenny General Hospital is too bitter a pill to swallow.
Last month 15,000 people took to the streets to speak of the pain and suffering endured by our many cancer patients due to the lack of local services.
In 1995, as a GP from the north-west, I made a written submission to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation about precisely this problem. I suggested twinning arrangements between Altnagelvin and Letterkenny and between the Erne and Sligo hospitals. These suggestions were incorporated in the ICGP submission and received support from politicians. What has happened since? Mary Harney has announced there will be no radiotherapy centre north of the Dublin-Galway line. Neither is there a breast surgeon approved for Letterkenny General Hospital. This is not to mention the suffering of all our patients with neurological diseases.
Donegal has the highest incidence of multiple sclerosis in the country but no access to services closer than Dublin. Why the lack of planning? Must it always be crisis management? The recent report on the underspending of funds for Border and midland regions was depressing. The inclusion of Inishowen as a part of Northern Ireland in a Fás brochure is symptomatic of State agencies' ignorance of the county.
We are Irish citizens, aren't we? - Yours, etc,
Dr DANIEL McGINLEY, Carrownaffe, Moville, Co Donegal.