Brian Stanley: Waive Cancer Parking, Fix Treatment Delays

Thanks Cathaoirleach and welcome to the proposals in this motion tonight here. Unfortunately the incidence of cancer is increasing and many cancer patients are being failed. There's roughly 42,000 people diagnosed with cancer per annum in the state. That's a huge number of people. The state has the third highest mortality rate in the European Union. That's in the 27 in terms of the mortality rate for people with cancer. So poor former Eastern Bloc countries are doing better than we are. Leash for example, 270 people were diagnosed roughly each year and that doesn't include non-melanoma skin cancer. Unfortunately in 2024, the last figures that we have, is 138 people died from cancer. I want to acknowledge the great work done by the Cushla Centre in Portleash. Those centres do need more government support Minister. A lot of the money is raised voluntarily. In Leash also people face challenges with costs. Obviously many of them don't have medical cards. They have to travel to hospitals generally in Dublin. They have to pay tolls, they have to pay parking fees, extra fuel. One of the things that needs to be done is to waive the parking charges for cancer patients. That's one of the things that can be done very simply. It's a very simple measure that can be taken. The delays in surgery are shocking. They're not being done within the time frame. According to the Irish Cancer Society, 61% of prostate surgeries are not being done within the target time frame. 45% of breast surgeries, 39% of lung operations are not being done within the targeted time frame. There's delays in radiotherapy of 23% not being done within the target time frame. Chemotherapy 15%. That's shocking. Imagine the stress and worry for people who are delayed. I know somebody who was waiting and waiting and waiting and had to intervene on their behalf at the time to get the necessary treatment that they needed. That's not good enough. There's also a lack of awareness around the symptoms and delayed diagnosis. We need to increase public awareness around that. In short, we need to expand the outdated diagnostic equipment that we have and invest in modern equipment and modern infrastructure within our hospitals and scale up for it. Because one in two of us is going to get cancer. That's the bad news. We need to expand the number of training places for cancer treatment staff because without staff, it can't be done. The bowel screening and breast check is fantastic. We need some work to be done in expanding that. We need a greater emphasis on prevention and awareness. We need to strengthen north-south cooperation. It's one of the things that we can do on a north-south basis is strengthen the cooperation in terms of cancer research and treatment. I would ask as well that there's a lot of talk about screening, but men over 60, the risk of prostate cancer, the number of people I'm coming across, maybe it's when you get older you meet this, the number of people you come across who are getting prostate cancer, we need to provide free screening, free blood tests for men over 60 for prostate cancer. Ban sunbeds. It's crazy using sunbeds. It's recommended by the Irish Cancer Society and I don't know of any sensible person who wouldn't support that. We need to include cancer patients for automatic entitlement to medical cards. I've had situations where one person who died and they couldn't get a medical card a number of years ago, they were a cancer patient and they actually died from cancer without being able to get it. They weren't millionaires, their income was very modest, but they couldn't get a medical card because of the low income thresholds. So if somebody has, particularly stage 3 or 4 cancer, get them a bloody medical card. They need to get it and waive the car parking charges for cancer patients. Ask each hospital to do that. A simple voucher would do it.