New cancer screening unit in KGH by May - HSE
Wednesday March 10 2010
THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has said that it will be at least May of this year before the long-awaited mammography screening machine will be up-and-running at Kerry General Hospital (KGH).
The status of the cancer screening unit had been the subject of huge confusion following revelations in The Kerryman two weeks ago that a senior HSE executive, charged with overseeing the reconfiguration of health care services here, was not familiar with any such plans
Despite confirmation from the HSE that a contractor had been secured to carry out the installation works required for this project, Professor John Higgins — the project director of the HSE's health care reconfiguration plan in Cork and Kerry — said he knew nothing of the project.
At the same time, a senior staff member at KGH also told The Kerryman that the mammography unit has never featured on the hospital board's agenda, despite repeated promises from the HSE communications office that the cancer screening unit will be operational within KGH's radiology unit.
This week, however, following another query from The Kerryman, the HSE reaffirmed its commitment to providing the unit at KGH. A statement confirmed that the aforementioned contractor, working closely with KGH's Technical Services Department, has started the necessary installation works which involves the creation of additional space within the radiology department to accommodate the new mammography unit. Once complete, the installation and commissioning of the new unit will commence.
"It is anticipated that the service will commence in May 2010," the HSE statement read.
This week's update comes almost nine months after the HSE initially wrote to The Kerryman confirming that a new digital mammography machine would be installed and commissioned in KGH within 'three to four weeks' — and almost a year and a half since it first promised such facilities would be made available to Kerry patients.
The provision of the machine would mean that all Kerry women who have undergone surgery for breast cancer would be able to have follow-up mammography screening at KGH rather than travelling to Cork University Hospital (CUH).
The HSE also confirmed that as part of this project specialist engineers will put in place a digital link — namely a Radiological Information System/ Picture Archive Communication System (RIS/PACs) — between the radiology services at KGH and CUH.
"This allows full integration between the two systems and enables the consultant radiologists specialising in mammography in CUH to read the follow-up mammograms from KGH and compare them with any previous mammograms the patient may have had either in Kerry or Cork," the statement read.
- MARISA REIDY mreidy@kerryman.ie
