Pink Ladies sing in celebration

Around 50 of the ladies were perched on their edges of their seats in the Gasyard Centre anxiously waiting Monday’s announcement by the new Minister for Health, Edwin Poots, in which he revealed that not only would the centre open, it would also be fully staffed.

Technical hitches were straightened out just in time for the ladies to hear the Minister make his pronouncement, stressing the importance of the unit to not just the north west, but the whole of the Province.

Facilitator for the Pink Ladies, Maureen Collins said that the announcement had shown the new Health Minister had taken very seriously the cry for a cancer centre that had come from the north west and the Pink Ladies.

“We have campaigned tirelessly and endlessly with cross-party support, cross-community support, and cross-border support and from all those in the north west who have been affected by cancer. We cannot put a price on this, it is the best news that this city has had for a long time. After march 23 I have to say the impact of Mr McGimpsy’s announcement was one of so much negativity and fear that the north west, once again, had been left out and not given what was rightly theirs in terms of health services,” she said.

“I believe very strongly, as do all the Pink Ladies, that Mr McGimpsey did what he did in the 11th hour, even though documentation was released and which the Sentinel published that the decision was made within two hours it went from being a priority to not existing at all. Finance Minister Sammy Wilson met us when the decision was announced and he told us that the money was always there. I think that leaves a lot of scepticism of Mr McGimpsey’s role as Health Minister. He held that post for four years and our health was in his hands, and that he could just make an 11th hour decision was disgusting. Minister Poots revealed here today that he had seen the situation with his own eyes and spoke to the cancer centre staff, who have revealed by 2016 there is no way they could cope with the numbers coming from the north west and they are overflowing at the minute as it is,” she said.

Maisie Crawford, who has survived a breast cancer scare, and is currently waiting for news on whether or not she has lung cancer, described the announcement as “like a brand new day”.

“Oh thank God,” she said as news that the unit would be fully staffed was announced, adding: “I may need help and tender loving care, but it would be brilliant if I did not have to go back up to Belfast. That’s not to say that they are not lovely up there, because they are brilliant.”

She continued: “I am absolutely over the moon and so grateful that people coming behind me, God love them, that they might only have to cross over the bridge, come across the Waterside or across the Border to come to the new centre. I feel passionate about it, I really do.”

Asked if she had a message for the Minister for Health, Maisie said: “Thank you Edwin.”

Another of the Pink Ladies, Margaret Semple from Rossmore, who is currently going through cancer treatment, having been diagnosed in December 2009, underwent chemotherapy from January to June in 2010, and radiotherapy in July and August last year as well, and is currently taking Herceptin. Her treatment will last another year.

Asked what it would have meant to her to receive her treatment locally, she said: “I am happy for other people that they will not have to endure what I have had to. My radiotherapy lasted five weeks and for me the choice was travel up and down daily or stay up in Belfast and I chose to stay up because it was less inconvenience to other people taking me up and down. I would not have been able to drive myself. As far as the actual treatment, you went had a waiting time of 10 to 15 minutes but the actual treatment was three to five minutes, and at that time you are emotional, you are vulnerable, you are all over the place, so you really need someone with you,” she said.

Asked how she had reacted to former Minister, Michael McGimpsey’s decision, she said: “I was absolutely disgusted. Mr McGimpsey did not even have the decency to meet with us, he always refused to meet with the Pink Ladies. People need this. It is not a luxury, it is a necessity.”

Mr Mark Durkan, MP, who chose to hear the announcement in the company of the Pink Ladies, said he was “absolutely delighted”.

Paying tribute to the fight for services by the Pink Ladies, he said: “They thought they had it won before, they should not have had to fight again in the way they did. I think what Edwin Poots has done today has proved the previous announcement by Mr McGimpsey should never have happened.”