Hundreds of protesters picketed the Dáil today over plans to abolish vital cancer services in the north-west.
Sligo General Hospital is to be downgraded and locked out of the Health Service Executive's centre of excellence programme for treating patients.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) and Government are under increasing pressure over the National Cancer Control Programme and failures to provide adequate care in several major hospitals.
It plans to establish eight centres of excellence by the end of 2009. Sligo is not one of them, meaning patients in south Donegal, Mayo and Leitrim will have to travel to Galway for vital treatment.
Minister of State at the Department of Health Jimmy Devins, who is a Fianna Fáil TD for Sligo/Leitrim, has gone against Government policy and opposes the plan to freeze out Sligo.
The protest is being attended by hundreds of people and politicians from Sligo, Leitrim and South Donegal. Around 4,000 people attended a similar protest in Sligo last month.
The protesters delivered a letter to Minister for Health Mary Harney from Tim O'Hanrahan, consultant general surgeon at Sligo hospital, in which he pleads with the Minister to reconsider the strategy. Dozens of letters were also delivered from patients who are unable to make the trip.