THE COST INCURRED by people affected by cancer is \u201cchipping away\u201d at patients\u2019 and families\u2019 \u201csafety nets, plans and hopes for the future\u201d.<\/p>\n
A new survey from the Irish Cancer Society showed that those affected by cancer lose an average of \u20ac16,200 in annual income as a result of their diagnosis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re calling for a number of measures to alleviate this to be included in Budget 2027.<\/p>\n
Findings from the society\u2019s survey include that some patients, especially those with advanced cancer or nearing end-of-life, are not able to afford to heat their homes.<\/p>\n
Those surveyed paid up to \u20ac300 just to get to their appointments each month and many were forced to borrow from family or friends.<\/p>\n
Patient testimonies from the survey highlighted the stress these costs have caused for them and their families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aoife Murphy, from Portarlington, Co Laois, had been saving for a deposit for a house before she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said that was \u201cthrown out the window\u201d after her diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the hospital fees, it\u2019s the oncology fees, the surgeon fees, it\u2019s the driving up and back to Dublin, and parking in the Mater is astronomical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy said these costs have chipped away at her \u201csafety net\u201d and her \u201cplans and hopes for the future\u201d.<\/p>\n
Miriam Hilliard, who was diagnosed with\u00a0endometrial cancer in 2018 and has suffered a number of recurrences, said extra costs have \u201cadded an additional level of financial stress.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hilliard highlighted expenses like fuel, car parking charges, medical equipment, hospital canteens and her medication which she has been on since 2018 and which costs\u00a0\u20ac80 a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also said she has previously been refused\u00a0a medical card and called for the abolition of hospital car parking charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Irish Cancer Society is calling for automatic entitlements to medical cards and the abolition of hospital car parking charges in Budget 2027.<\/p>\n
They are also calling for the drug repayment scheme threshold to be reduced to \u20ac40 and for anyone with advanced cancer to be automatically entitled to the fuel allowance and the household benefits package<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE COST INCURRED by people affected by cancer is \u201cchipping away\u201d at patients\u2019 and families\u2019 \u201csafety nets, plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[166626,258,103,397,396,34360,249846,61,60,27286],"class_list":["post-633493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-budget-2027","tag-cancer","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-healthcare-costs","tag-hospital-parking","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-cancer-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633493","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=633493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}