The State is spending €23 million a year outsourcing radiotherapy for oncology patients to the private sector “because of machines breaking down, not being replaced, and the lack of a national replacement programme”, the Dáil heard on Wednesday.
The claim was made by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett who was diagnosed with throat cancer in April. He was welcomed back to the Dáil on Wednesday following his recovery, with sustained applause and good wishes from across the House.
In his first Dáil contribution to the House in six months, he raised the issue of oncology services and related machinery.
The Dun Laoghaire, Dublin TD had been cared for in St Luke’s and the Eye and Ear Hospitals. He said a particular issue for him and staff had been radiation oncology machines.
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“They’re called linear accelerators. They basically have given me my life back,” he said.
Mr Boyd Barrett said 50 per cent of those who get a cancer diagnosis will need these machines, but “incredibly, 35 per cent of those machines, which are supposed to be replaced every 10 years, are now 15- to 17-years old”. He added that “40 per cent will need to be replaced in the next five years”.
Radiotherapy services are operating significantly below capacity due to under resourcing, he said. “Sixteen of 24 working days last month were affected by unscheduled downtime because machines are breaking down as they are too old, putting stress on patients and staff.”
Radiation oncology workers, he said, have repeatedly asked for a national radiotherapy replacement programme. “That’s where there is centralised oversight of procurement and ring-fenced funding going forward – multiannual funding. So they don’t have to come each year with a begging bowl for money to provide this absolutely vital machinery to save lives.”
Paying tribute to health service employees and those working in cancer services, he said he had been unaware that “50 per cent of people will have an encounter with cancer during their lives and 44,000 people this year will get a cancer diagnosis”.
The Irish Cancer Society made a series of prebudget requests but “it’s still not clear whether any of those have been met, to fully fund and resource the National Cancer Strategy”.
The PBP leader thanked colleagues for their kind words and messages. He also expressed his gratitude “to the thousands of members of the public who sent very, very kind messages to me, which he described as “very heartening and very helpful”.
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers paid tribute to Mr Boyd Barrett and praised his candour in interviews about his illness.
Replying for the Government, he said he would ask Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill “to respond to your specific question” about oncology machinery. He said he would “take a note of it in terms of the work that’s happening on the capital plans for the next five years”.
Mr Chambers highlighted progress in cancer outcomes through the National Cancer Strategy, noting that over 65 per cent of patients live for five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared to 43 per cent in the 1990s.
