03-05-2025
'I need a scan to see if I'm dying or not': Lung cancer patient queries outsourcing and delays
A Cork lung cancer patient has raised questions about delays to vital scans and the impact of outsourcing the reading of those scans in her case.
Up to Thursday, 43-year-old Gillian Ryan, who lives in Bandon, Co Cork, had no date for a scan due six months after her last one in October.
'It is a surveillance scan to see where the cancer's at, how it's behaving. Basically, I need a scan to see if I'm dying or not,' she said.
'I did relay how anxious this was making me, this was my life at the end of the day.'
Her last scan was at a private clinic in Cork City under an arrangement with Cork University Hospital (CUH).
However, she was told this is no longer possible even when she offered to pay.
Last week she was given an appointment for June 7 at Bantry General Hospital.
This caused further distress because last year and in 2023 she experienced problems with reading of scans when this was outsourced by Bantry.
'I was just shocked, just shell-shocked that was even an option to send me back there, as that was the very hospital that outsourced my scans only for them to be unreported on,' she said.
The nodule was allowed to double in size, twice, it went unreported.
She had the top section of her right lung removed previously, this nodule formed on the bottom section going from 4mm in April 2023 to 10mm by November 2024.
Her children are 20 and 17, and she said: 'They still need me, and I'm only 43. I don't want to expire this early.
Gillian Ryan had the top section of her right lung removed previously.
'I appreciate other people are waiting but I can only think of me and my two children, I don't want to leave them motherless.'
She added: 'I was told last April [2024] that I would never have to go back to Bantry, that all my care would be in the CUH going forward.'
She has been told by staff informally there is no resident radiologist in Bantry.
'It just feels like I'm being swept under the carpet, that my life doesn't matter,' she said.
'I do think priority should be given to people who're going through cancer.
We should have learned from the CervicalCheck not to outsource our scans.
Ms Ryan discussed this with the Irish Examiner on Wednesday when she had "no concrete date".
Questions were submitted to the HSE Southwest on Thursday morning.
Later that day after Ms Ryan contacted CUH again, the private clinic said CUH authorised an appointment for Friday morning with it.
'This scan determines the course of my life,' she said afterwards.
'I should never have had to fight, beg. This is your life and your life matters.'
HSE Southwest said cancer care is led the CUH Cancer Centre, with some surveillance scans at Bantry.
'The interval between these scans may vary, depending on each patient's treatment plan,' a spokeswoman said on Friday.
The radiology systems at both hospitals are linked meaning scans taken there can be viewed, read, and reported at CUH.
'We can confirm that an external company provides radiology reporting services at Bantry General Hospital.
"This service is accredited and subject to regular audit,' she said.
The hospital does not comment on individual patients' treatment.
It is understood CUH has been in touch with Ms Ryan and intends to review her care.
