{"id":764024,"date":"2026-09-08T14:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764024\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T14:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:36:10","slug":"northern-ireland-cancer-wait-times-dangerously-long-says-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764024\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland cancer wait times &#8216;dangerously long&#8217;, says patient"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McClean underwent stereotactic radiosurgery, which is a precise form of radiotherapy that delivers a high dose of radiation to a targeted area within the brain. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He also received neurosurgery after three tumours were discovered in his brain. A fourth tumour was discovered in 2024, which required radiotherapy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said he was living well with cancer, but receiving quicker scan results would reduce his high level of stress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m constantly fearful&#8230; my anxiety levels are very high all the time and the waiting lists are a big part of that, because once I have a scan I am always more anxious until I get the results,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There have been times when I&#8217;ve got the results and it&#8217;s like I relax, because I know that there&#8217;s going to be a plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been able to do my job, but the anxiety is actually what&#8217;s holding me back at the minute and that makes my life, my working life, much more difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McClean, who documents his story on YouTube, praised his medical team and said the blame for the state of cancer services in Northern Ireland &#8220;is Stormont&#8217;s fault&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McClean underwent stereotactic radiosurgery, which is a precise form of radiotherapy that delivers a high dose of radiation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-764024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}