Fast-track cancer diagnosis

■ It was both alarming and depressing in equal measure that we learned that 3,000 patients a year were diagnosed with some form of cancer in our hospital emergency wards (Irish Independent, March 29).

To think that this life-threatening disease is only being picked up in our chaotic and increasingly over-burdened A&E departments leaves an awful lot to be desired for the feelings of the unfortunate patient.

We are told in the report that 60 people approximately per day are diagnosed with some form of invasive cancer and that unfortunately, despite big improvements in screening tests for this illness and much quicker access to tests for certain cancers, that in excess of eight people a day are told that they have this disease in a hospital emergency unit.

Also unfortunately, more than six patients a day are diagnosed both at a late stage and in an emergency situation.

Some patients have described this situation as an isolating, lonesome and frightening experience that causes great trauma to themselves and their families at a most vulnerable time in their lives.

Surely services can be fast-tracked to assist the detection of cancer at an earlier stage of development, thereby having a much better long-term outcome for the sick person, for example, better facilities for cancer testing in local communities, local doctors having more prompt access to testing for patients, more specialists deployed in health centres throughout the country, with at least one cancer centre of excellence north of a Galway-Dublin line.

These measures would certainly help to alleviate the pressure on our overcrowded A&E departments and our greatly overworked doctors and nurses providing emergency service in our hospitals.

It would almost certainly provide much better and a speedier road map to diagnosis and treatments that would lead to a much improved prognosis and outcome for a great many cancer patients and their families.

Tom Towey Cloonacool, Co Sligo