Two-tier cancer plan hits the west hardest

Sir — A leading specialist has warned that Ireland has a twotier cancer system, with poorer outcomes for those in the west and north-west.

Professor Michael Kerin, director of the Saolta Cancer Network, said Galway University Hospital (GUH) is outdated and has inadequate facilities for cancer patients. He further stated that the west and north-west is the most rural area of the country and suffers from economic deprivation, with poorer outcomes for cancer patients.

If a line was drawn across the country from Galway to Dublin, a cancer centre of excellence does not exist north of that line. Is this what balanced regional development and equality in good cancer care looks like?

There are sick people travelling from the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal to a seriously overcrowded hospital in Galway on the “cancer bus”. They must endure a 12-hour journey there and back. If this happened elsewhere in the country, there would be outrage and revolt.

Where are our politicians in this unequal scenario?

Some years ago, breast cancer services were removed from

Sligo University Hospital and patients had to go to Galway for their treatment. Why not bring back breast, prostate and other cancer services to SUH in Sligo, which is recognised as a growth centre in the National Development Plan?

This would relieve the pressure on Galway’s outdated and inadequate hospital, which is already creaking. It would also ensure very ill people from Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim and Sligo would not have to endure long, painful commutes.

This two-tier system must be re-balanced and the west and north-west put on an even footing with the rest of Ireland.

Tom Towey,

Cloonacool, Co Sligo

Sir — We only recently saw the opening of applications to the Mother and Baby redress scheme: closure, perhaps, of a long road for a lot of people who for years have looked for validation from the church and State.

But as one of up to 24,000 people who are excluded from the scheme because of the sixmonth residency requirement, it was just more salt in a very open wound for me.

I have learned from the released data (ridiculously redacted) that my time in a mother and baby home was 170 days, just 10 days shy of the 180-day requirement. A sniffle or childhood ailment could have necessitated me having to stay in the home for the obligatory time.

Am I being conspiratorial in thinking the six-month rule was brought in to exclude the large number of children who were homed within this period?

The information I received, that my birth mother and I were together for the 170 days, has actually brought fresh heartache to my life. I always imagined we were separated soon after my birth, so to think she had to part with me after bonding for that time is unbearable.

When any candidate comes looking for my vote, I will ask: “How did you vote on the day this cruel, cynical, mean-spirited exclusion was included in the redress scheme?”

Catherine O’Brien,

Dublin 5

Sir — We are driven almost to the point of distraction by the current mishmash of speed limits. On the R630 from Midleton to Whitegate — a short nine miles — I encounter the following kmh limits: 30, 50, 80, 50,

80, 60, 80, 50, 60, 50, 60, 80, 50. There is also a brief 100kmh at the Lakeview roundabout.

At the multi-million euro works at the Lee Tunnel, heading east on the N40, it is 100kmh approaching the tunnel, reducing to 80kmh in the tunnel and an inexplicable reduction to 60kmh on leaving the tunnel, which means that one has to try to join the N25 proper at far too slow a speed.

Michael Kenefick,

Whitegate, Co Cork

Sir — As the accommodation scandal for refugees and international protection applicants continues, a bigger scandal is the developers and speculators cashing in on the situation.

These people are exploiting the state of affairs, setting up companies that buy guesthouses, hotels, convents, pubs and other properties to lease to the State for millions.

Even properties in the most remote areas are being acquired for this purpose. These nameless speculators’ only motive is profit. How come charitable or philanthropic funding never seems to be available for housing these vulnerable people? Brian Lube,

Co Meath

Sir — Since the Catholic Church failed to honour its agreement to pay its disproportionately small share of compensation to persons abused while in its care, it was never in the public interest for us citizens to build the new National Maternity Hospital on a congested site that remains under the church’s control.

Yet that’s what then health minister Simon Harris did in 2017. And he went further: the hospital will return to the nuns after 300 years — the age of many of our government offices.

In my view, Harris is unfit for the top job of taoiseach, notwithstanding his gift of the gab. John F Colgan,

Leixlip, Co Kildare