Private patients skip the cancer queues
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Private patients with suspected cancer are getting fast-tracked to treatment in state hospitals while their public counterparts are left waiting.
The shocking trend emerged in a major survey of private patients who needed investigations to find out if they had cancer.
Confirmation of a quicker system for those who can pay for their health service will re-ignite claims that money talks -- and saves lives.
The revelation comes against a backdrop where even "urgent" public patients with potentially serious symptoms can wait up to two months.
The issue, already a major problem for Health Minister Mary Harney, is now likely to spark a whole new controversy.
The survey by the Irish College of General Practitioners and the Irish Cancer Society reveals queue-jumping is now entrenched in hospitals funded by taxpayers.
It will revive poignant memories of the plight of Kilkenny mother-of-two Susie Long, who died last year. She told how she waited seven months to be called for tests to discover if she had bowel cancer. She claimed private patients with the same condition had been seen much sooner.
The new findings, published in the Irish Medical Journal, appear to confirm this. They say the majority of GPs considered that the ability to pay for private treatment "always or usually affects access to referral services".
Ms Harney has pledged to try to end this two -tier system currently in operation in hospitals once a new work contract has been agreed with hospital consultants.
Symptoms
For the moment, the majority of GPs reported longer waiting times at the local hospital for a public compared to private patient who has suspected symptoms of cancer.
GPs reported greater direct access to all investigations for private patients, with the biggest discrepancy for CT scanning and mammography .
Other major barriers faced in the early detection of cancer were patients, particularly men and the elderly, waiting too long before attending their GP to have symptoms checked.
The doctors also reported poor communication with hospital services and lack of guidelines on what constituted an "urgent" patient in need of investigation.
The doctors singled out the referral of breast cancer as an exception and said overall these services were superior.
"Only one-third reported that urgent patients with acute symptoms requiring treatment received an appointment on the day of referral," according to the study.
"GPs reported poor communication with hospital services and considered this a major barrier to early detection.
Informed
"Only one in 10 said they were routinely informed by the hospital of the date of their patient's appointment," said the study.
The family doctors were clear that in order to improve early detection they needed more rapid-access clinics for assessment of patients with suspected cancer.
They also want shorter waiting lists for urgent patients and equal access to investigation and referral for medical card and private patients at their local public hospital.
The authors said the findings come in the wake of another study indicating GPs now have less access to radiology services to scan patient than they did in the 1980s and 1990s.
Ms Harney said that once arrangements had been put in place to allow for the new work contract, it would mean patients would be prioritised in terms of their medical need and not their ability to pay.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
