The vice-chairman of the Oireachtas Health Committee is to lobby the Minister for Health for a satellite radiotherapy centre in the northwest.
Jimmy Devins TD (FF, Sligo/Leitrim), who is also a GP, said it would be "ludicrous" to proceed with the €400 million national radiotherapy plan without providing a satellite centre for people in the region.
Three centres of excellence are to be provided in Dublin, Cork and Galway, with two satellite centres planned for Waterford and Limerick. Ms Harney has had talks with her Northern counterpart about patients from the northwest having radiotherapy at the treatment centre in Belfast City Hospital which will open next spring.
Dr Devins said patients in Sligo and parts of Donegal, who presently undergo long journeys for treatment, will have to travel to Belfast. "It is 120 miles from Sligo to Belfast and 130 miles from Sligo to Dublin, so there is practically no difference. It is not good enough to have cancer patients travelling these distances for 20-minute treatments five days a week for five or six weeks".
Dr Devins hopes to lead a deputation to the Minister to convince her that a centre should be located in Sligo. "Sligo is the ideal location from a geographic point of view because it is equidistant to north Mayo and north Donegal and because Sligo General Hospital already has two of three modalities needed for cancer treatment - surgery and chemotherapy."
