Deferment of new Radiotherapy Unit at Altnagelvin

Thomas Paine intriguingly wrote in the eighteenth century, ‘when, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of Government.’ While developed countries may pride themselves in having moved away from both the workhouse and the gallows, nowadays young men are dispatched, almost with indecent haste, to distant killing fields at exorbitant cost, fighter planes are ordered to dart to and from another continent at thousands of pounds per hour while tomahawk missiles, each costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, are released nightly in the latest battle ground. Yet, when it comes to the basic health and physical well-being of a segment of the population at home, who find themselves geographically dislocated from both a Belfast and Dublin concentration in cancer care, it astonishingly appears that finding a comparatively small sum of money to run a much-needed new Cancer Unit in Derry/Londonderry, is beyond the ability of Minister McGimpsey’s Health Department to deliver! Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with our system of Government that appears to rank involvement in distant warfare above the provision of local specialist hospital care for cancer patients!

Fighting wars is costly. Regrettably, the price in blood continues to be paid by the brave members of our Armed Forces. In addition, the price in treasury has become exorbitant. A recent study, for instance, reveals that fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost the British taxpayer more than £20billion since the 9/11 Twin Towers attack. Amazingly, this massive expenditure excludes pay and allowances for service personnel. Moreover, it does not include long-term injuries and mental health costs associated with armed conflict and is on top of a £35billion Defence Budget.

Surely a country that can afford to go to war can afford to look after the health and physical well-being of its citizens wherever they are located or is the lure of conflict so seductive that world leaders are prepared to allocate vast sums of taxpayers money to yet another war that will greedily absorb millions of pounds?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

If a British Government considers it moral to take on the burden of caring for the oppressed people of Libya, that same British Government must of necessity enable a post-election NI Executive to quickly redress the Health Budget deficit. This would effectively ensure that cancer patients in the Derry/Londonderry and Donegal catchment area, would no longer have to endure the arduous and lengthy journey to either Belfast or Dublin but would have easy access to high quality specialist medical care, which they so rightly deserve and to have this delivered, without any further delay, in Northern Ireland’s second city.

Related topics: