Message from Janette Byrne, Cancer survivor and Patients Together Spokesperson

Planning for the protest march of October 11th:

In recent years we have all heard of the horrendous way some cancer patients have suffered in our Health System.

• Late diagnosis. (Too late for our friend Susie Long and many others)
• Misdiagnosis
• No Beds
• Long waits for scans, chemotherapy, radiotherapy
• Some losing their lives not to cancer but to hospital acquired infections

As part of the ‘Public Health Campaign’s’ protest on the 11th of October and with your help we want to create a ‘bandana bunting’

 

What’s involved:

• If you were a cancer patient you can bring a bandana and pin it on with everyone else on the day.
• If you had a loved one who experienced cancer and you wish to pin a bandana on their behalf that is fine also.
• Bandanas may be signed and include a message.
• We want to make this cancer patients support as large as possible.
• If you are unwell and unable to attend the protest you can post your bandana to 82, Finglas Park  Dublin 11

 

Only with your support will this happen.

Lets make this protest the greatest ever, we did it for the Antiwar campaign, we did it for Irish Ferries, we even did it in support of Beweley’s, now your health deserves your support.

Please forward this message to others

Janette Byrne Patients Together 085-7302798

 

Irish Times Article: “Campaigners for a lost cause?”

More than bricks and mortar; ‘St Luke’s Hospital is in an absolutely beautiful place, and if I were a cancer patient in Dublin and offered a choice, I’d go there, because environment does matter,’ says Ian Fraser, consultant radiation oncologist at the hospital.St Luke’s cancer hospital is scheduled for relocation to a new centre of excellence, but supporters continue to fundraise and some resist the move. Are they wasting their time, asks Rosita Boland

 

ST LUKE’S HOSPITAL, in Rathgar, Co Dublin, is one of those medical institutions held in particular esteem by the public. With its 179 beds, it has been in operation as a cancer hospital since 1954, and its staff have long been praised for their thoughtful, sensitive and respectful dealings with patients at a particularly vulnerable time.
Cancer treatment requires regular attendance over a period, and is not a process easily forgotten. The affection in which St Luke’s is held is probably best demonstrated by the fact that former patients, and their family and friends, have raised €25 million for the hospital since 1980.

The hollow rhetoric of ‘centres of excellence’ – unmasking the national cancer strategy

The following is a speech at the recent protest to Save St Luke’s hospital given by Maire O’Connor (Press Officer, Health Services Action Group & author of “Emergency: Irish hospitals in chaos”

The news that St Luke’s Hospital was going to close was first heard from a property developer, I was told. Some time later, in July 2005, Mary Harney made the official announcement. Since then, there have been ongoing protests, all ignored by a Government increasingly out of touch with the people.

But whether or not property developers knew before the rest of us that Luke’s was to close, there is no doubting this Government’s intention to privatise cancer care. We have been trading in health care since 1953, when public hospitals were first allowed to divide their beds into public, private and semi-private. But is it only in the last 17 years that we have seen the galloping privatisation of our health services. Cancer care has been singled out as one of the profitable areas.

Campaign confronts Minister Harney over Luke’s Closure

At a health debate in Trinity College the Save St Luke’s Campaign in Dublin confronted the Minister over plans to close St Luke’s Cancer Hospital.

Minister for Health, Mary Harney, refuses to meet cancer hospital campaign

The Save St Luke’s Campaign, expressed considerable disapointment today at being told by the Minister for Health that she is not available to meet a delegation from the campaign.

The Campaign has been requesting a meeting for a number of months and was informed recently that, “Unfortunately due to a very heavy schedule of Government and Departmental business over the coming weeks and months, the Minister regrets that she will not be in a position to meet with this deputation.”

Keep St Luke’s Hospital in Rathgar

For over half a century St Luke’s Hospital, Dublin has been the main radiotherapy treatment centre for people suffering from cancer. The aim of St Luke’s is to treat and cure as many forms of cancer as possible. It provides advanced treatment machines and planning facilities. St Luke’s provides high in-patient and out-patient care.

In July 2005 the government announced a decision to move St Luke’s to the site of St Jame’s Hospital as part of the National Radiotherapy Network. We believe this move is not in the best interest of the patients treated at this wonderful hospital in Rathgar. St Luke’s should be expanded, upgraded and retained in St Luke’s in Rathgar.