Women diagnosed with breast cancer at the new BreastCheck screening centres in Galway and Cork may be unable to access full treatment facilities as a result of a delay in recruiting staff, it has emerged.
Informed sources have told The Irish Timesthat the current recruitment embargo operated by the HSE is affecting efforts to put "BreastCheck consequential resources" in place.
This term refers to the staff and infrastructure required to treat women diagnosed with cancer by BreastCheck as part of the National Breast Screening Programme. The resources include additional surgeons, breast care nurses and theatre facilities. BreastCheck is responsible for women until they have undergone initial surgery. Thereafter, the HSE looks after these patients as they receive further treatment such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
HSE West has identified the need for 44 whole-time equivalent staff to support BreastCheck. Earlier this month, the regional co-ordinator of acute services at HSE West was asked "to progress as a matter of urgency" the filling of symptomatic breast service posts.
However, sources at University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) said that a combination of a short recruitment timeframe and the HSE embargo means that key personnel such as experienced theatre staff may not be in post when the first patients come on stream in January. Similar concerns have been expressed about the readiness of hospital services in Cork to deal with breast cancer patients referred by BreastCheck.
But Ger O'Callaghan, chief executive of the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, Cork, said yesterday there was no cause for concern. "I do not envisage any difficulties for women who will have been screened with BreastCheck in a December clinic and who require subsequent surgery in January 2008," he said.
And a spokeswoman for HSE West said a national derogation committee, set up by the HSE to approve urgent posts during the recruitment embargo, will be asked to approve posts in the short term. It did not foresee a need for a full complement of symptomatic breast service staff until 2009, she added.
A BreastCheck spokeswoman confirmed that it continued to appoint staff as it was excluded from the recruitment embargo. She said that women in Cork and Galway had already been contacted offering them December appointments for mammograms at the new facilities in both cities and that BreastCheck clinics, at which women requiring follow-up would be seen, will begin next January.
BreastCheck began screening women aged 50-64 in 2000. However, until now the service has been available only to women in the east, southeast and midlands. Almost 60,000 women were screened for breast cancer in 2005.
Meanwhile, doctors at Mayo General Hospital said excluding women with symptomatic breast disease from attending Castlebar hospital will mean that 2,500 additional patients will have to be seen at the breast clinic at UCHG, placing the Galway unit "under enormous pressure".
At present, some 2,000 mammograms are performed at the hospital annually and about 80 new breast cancers have been treated at Mayo General Hospital so far this year. But while the hospital meets most quality assurance guidelines published recently by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), its catchment population is 140,000, not enough to guarantee the throughput of women with breast cancer deemed necessary to ensure a quality outcome. The new national cancer control programme has identified eight specialist centres, including UCHG, to provide multidisciplinary treatment for all forms of cancer.