Government accused of ‘deliberately underfunding’ cancer services

By Cate McCurry, PA

The Government has been accused of “deliberately underfunding” cancer health services by Sinn Féin.

Pearse Doherty claimed that cancer patients in Ireland are not given the best possible chance of surviving the disease because of political choices by the Government.

It comes after the Irish Cancer Society warned that cancer survival rates are unlikely to improve because services are underfunded.

The charity’s chief executive, Averil Power, told the Oireachtas health committee on Wednesday that the cancer strategy has been underfunded in five of the last seven years.

Ms Power said that Ireland’s cancer outcomes may have “stagnated”.

The HSE also said they sought €20 million in additional funding to improve cancer services this year.

Mr Doherty claimed the Government has not approved the requested additional money.

The Donegal TD said: “The sobering reality is that one in two people will have cancer at some point in their lives. And when you get that diagnosis, you deserve the best possible chance of surviving the disease and having a good quality of life afterwards.

“But people with cancer in Ireland are not being given that chance today because of the political choices of your Government.”

He added: “Simon Harris, as minister for health, didn’t properly fund the cancer strategy in any of the years that he was minister for health and it has been underfunded in most of the years since.

“You deliberately underfunded the health service with disastrous consequences for patient safety.

“Yesterday the Irish Cancer Society told us that radiation equipment is lying idle in hospitals across this country. A spokesperson for the Institute of Radiotherapy, Radiography and Radiation Therapy said there had been forced machine closures in public facilities due to staff shortages.

“The fact that life-saving, vital and expensive cancer equipment is lying idle in many hospitals across the state is a punch in the gut to those families and their friends.

“Your Government deliberately made a choice in the budget to underfund the service as you have done in previous years.”

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said there has been a “very significant” improvement in cancer care in the last few years.

“Our mortality for all cancers dropped by 11% over the past 10 years,” he told the Dáil on Thursday.

“Survival rates are improving very significantly.”

He said that 65 per cent of patients lived five years after cancer diagnosis from 2014 to 2018.

“That compares with 44 per cent between 1994 and 1998,” Mr Martin added.

“There have been improvements, dramatic, in survival rates following a diagnosis of cancer and a significant reduction in terms of mortality rates, from all forms of cancer, and in some forms of cancers, very significant reduction in mortality rates.”

He added: “We provided over 1,000 new beds and since this Government came to power, we provided very significant increased allocations to HSE.

“I think it’s an extra 7.7 billion on the 2019 figures being provided to health.”