Plans to move specialist cancer surgery services away from small rural hospitals to larger regional centres are unacceptable, a cancer patient support group said today.
The Cancer Care Alliance says "a full multidisciplinary cancer service, offering best outcome for all cancer patients must be available on a regional basis".
The group's spokesman and Independent TD for Mayo, Dr Jerry Cowley, warned international best practice must not be "cherry-picked or modified".
He was responding to a report in today's Irish Timesclaiming several small hospitals would lose specialist cancer surgery services under proposals drawn up by the Government's main advisory body on oncology.
The National Cancer Forum is understood to be critical of current arrangements for the delivery of cancer services, claiming Ireland does not generally accord with international best practice.
It says there are clear differences in treatment and survival outcomes for patients with cancer depending on where they live.
A report by the National Cancer Registry cited by the forum is understood to have found significant differences in treatment patterns between health board areas.
The report claims certain hospital units see too few patients with particular forms of cancer and recommends the "centralisation of care into regional and supraregional centres".
The National Cancer Forum's proposals form part of the preparation of a new overall national cancer strategy that is due to be finalised later in the year.
