Our children deserve better than having to wait for cancer care

Carers have always known a sick child is a whole lot more than their sickness. How we view, value and cherish the youngest and most susceptible members of our society has to be the most honest hallmark of our humanity. That is why new figures on the cancellation of children’s chemotherapy appointments must hit home. Many of us go through life dreading the prospect of trauma or serious illness, so when a child is given a diagnosis that comes with both, we like to believe we would move mountains to alleviate their pain.

We would also trust that everything possible would be done to give them the best outcome possible.

Speaking in the Dáil, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said 800 appointments for chemotherapy for children were cancelled last year. Dealing with this must be “unimaginable” for parents, she added.

For decades we have listened to promises of more beds and more doctors, but we continue to fall short on both fronts. We have become lulled to accept, as ‘progress’, statements such as the numbers were better than last year when the reality is the levels of preventable suffering for too many due to cancellations and delays are intolerable.

When children are the ones who are being affected, we must see it and call it what it is, and that is failure. It is neither defensible nor excusable.

Doctors and nurses do all in their power to help, but if the resources are not in place, that is the responsibility of the Government.

This week we also learned how 4,000 children with scoliosis were waiting for their first consultation. In all, 270 of these are awaiting surgery and 78 have waited far longer than four months. This too is shameful and wrong for a wealthy country.

The Government also came under attack from Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who accused it of failing neurodiverse children and their families.

Critical delays in assessments and support are putting families under extreme stress and children are losing out. A record 250,000 hospital appointments were cancelled last year. Taoiseach Simon Harris remains adamant that services are improving and more staff will be recruited.

He further said he wanted parents to know “that they live in a country that has really good cancer-care outcomes”.

The excellence of care is not in question, nor is the dedication of those who provide it. The issue is the system is over-stretched and some extremely vulnerable patients are missing out. We have gone way beyond the point where to deny or defend the fact that people are suffering because of shortfalls is tolerated.

The deficiencies in our health service have been diagnosed ad nauseam. A chronic shortage of beds for treatment remains the core issue. The public has built up a resilience in accepting the dysfunctional, but children should not be expected to make sacrifices or suffer because problems that have solutions have been ignored or mismanaged for decades.