Thank you for allowing me to raise this important matter on the Adjournment. Official statistics suggest that Ireland is one of the most unhealthy nations in the European Union. The report "Health Status of the Irish People, 1994" reveals that Ireland has the highest death rate in the European Union. This is directly attributable to mortality associated with Ireland's high incidence of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. Happily trends are downwards in so far as cardiovascular diseases are concerned but unfortunately the reverse is the case in regard to cancer.
Cancer is now Ireland's second biggest killer. The Minister's first promise on taking office some months ago was to prioritise the development of services to combat cancer. Experts now suggest that as many as 100 Irish women needlessly die each year from breast cancer as a result of a lack of funding and organisation in the Department of Health. The shortage of facilities outside Dublin means that people living in the west and the north west are much more likely to undergo a breast removal than those living in Dublin. Our oncology service has been described by experts as a shambles. The application of chemotherapy has increased dramatically in the past five years but there has been no commensurate increase in the funding of cancer services to cope with this. The Department is on record as saying that the number of cancer patients treated in St. Vincent's and St. James's hospitals this year will not be less than the number treated in 1994. This, of course, blithely ignores the fundamental fact that the numbers who need to be referred to those hospitals are growing inexorably.
There are only four medical oncologists in Ireland, all of whom are based in Dublin. On their own admissions, these oncologists are now so snowed under with patients that they cannot take outside referrals. An input from a medical oncologist is usually vitally necessary to ensure that all that can be done is done to save the life of a cancer patient. Many patients outside Dublin are often simply shunted through the system because there is no or insufficient cancer expertise available locally. It has been brought to my attention that approximately 15 people born in Ireland now occupy senior positions in medical oncology in the United States and the United Kingdom. Referring to these in an interview in the Sunday Tribune on 12 March last Dr. John Crown, the consultant medical oncologist at St. Vincent's Hospital said:
Most of them are dying to come home but my job, which I got last year, was the first new job created in oncology here in this country in the last ten years.
In the same edition of the Sunday Tribune Dr. Peter Daly, the head of cancer treatment at St. James's Hospital in Dublin said:
We cannot cope with our patients. We are under so much pressure with the workload that we are running to keep pace. We are close to being burned out.
He went on to state: "We are so strapped it is impossible to provide even an absolutely basic cancer service". Those statements by the most senior people working at the coalface and the facts on which they are based represent a damning indictment of a most important and vital aspect of the health services. The Minister has only been in office for a few months but he and other Ministers should realise that they are the ones who are responsible. Does the Minister recognise that there is a problem? Does he recognise that the problem is of the magnitude stated by the leading experts in the field? What action does he propose to take to resolve the problem and what is the timescale for such action?
