Regional access to lung cancer detection
Dr. Ormonde challenged the fairness of funding and access to detection, citing the South Eastern Health Board’s lack of a CAT scanner compared with Dublin. The Minister said the country had enough scanners to cover three times the population; Ormonde argued some areas were still left out.
Is the Minister happy that his Department are making sufficient funds available to all health boards on an equal basis for the detection of lung cancer?
Comment on this
The bulk of the money is made available to the HEB and I do not have information about the amount of money made available directly to the health boards to combat smoking. However, through the HEB they get considerable assistance.
Comment on this
I was referring to detection, not to early education which is the responsibility of the HEB. The South Eastern Health Board have a catchment area in the region of 440,000 people but we do not have a CAT scanner while the city of Dublin with a population in the region of one million has four and may have a fifth soon. Does the Minister regard that as cherishing all our citizens equally?
Comment on this
There are so many CAT scanners in the country that we could cover three times our population.