Cancer experts have warned that over 80% of Ireland’s radiotherapy machines need immediate or imminent replacement, with little or no active planning to do so.<\/p>\n
They said the consequences of ageing machines impact directly on patients, with breakdowns resulting in missed radiation treatments, delayed treatments and longer treatments.<\/p>\n
There may also be a need to outsource treatments to private hospitals.<\/p>\n
The Irish Society of Radiation Oncology has told the Oireachtas Committee on Health that in Ireland’s public system, there are 23 linear accelerators, which deliver this treatment.<\/p>\n
Chairperson of Radiation Oncology at UCC Aisling Barry said that 12 of the 14 LINACs in Dublin are beyond their 10-year life span.<\/p>\n
She added that five machines in Cork will be due for replacement in three to five years.<\/p>\n
Oncology experts are calling for a structured, national replacement programme to ensure access to safe, modern radiotherapy as well as regional equity.<\/p>\n
Dr Barry told the committee that it does not mean more money or staff is needed, just rolling funding that would be required in any event to replace these machines.<\/p>\n
She said that up to 50% of patients with a cancer diagnosis will require radiotherapy during their illness.<\/p>\n
It is responsible for 40% of cancer cures either as the main treatment or in combination with other therapies.<\/p>\n
Today’s hearing heard that some machines are in use for 18 years, and the cost of a new machine is around \u20ac3 million.<\/p>\n
The Irish Cancer Society told the committee that day in, day out, it hears from members of the public about difficulties accessing cancer tests and treatments in an appropriate timeframe.<\/p>\n
ICS Director of Advocacy and Communications Steve Dempsey said that 44,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year, and this number is set to rise.<\/p>\n
He said that 1,440 patients will not start radiation therapy within the recommended timeframe.<\/p>\n
Mr Dempsey said that many patients face a postcode lottery, as machines around the country age and are not replaced as soon as they become outdated.<\/p>\n
He said that some machines are in service for 18 years.<\/p>\n
Labour Party Health Spokesperson Marie Sherlock said she was “gobsmacked” to hear that Ireland had the oldest fleet of linear accelerators in Europe, despite being the wealthiest country in Europe.<\/p>\n
She said the news would strike an element of terror into patients, but was no reflection on the excellent staff providing the service, having to work with old machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cancer experts have warned that over 80% of Ireland’s radiotherapy machines need immediate or imminent replacement, with little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-423387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}