“That Roscommon County Council supports the development of a Specialist Cancer Centre for the West and North West at Galway University Hospital and seeks the immediate appointment of a design team to progress this state-of-the-art Cancer Centre at UHG and complementary cancer care infrastructure at Hospitals in the Saolta Region (West and North West) in accordance with balanced regional development and as identified in the National Development Plan”

“That Roscommon County Council supports the development of a Specialist Cancer Centre for the West and North West at Galway University Hospital and seeks the immediate appointment of a design team to progress this state-of-the-art Cancer Centre at UHG and complementary cancer care infrastructure at Hospitals in the Saolta Region (West and North West) in accordance with balanced regional development and as identified in the National Development Plan.”

Cllr Leyden said she and Cllr. Naughten previously supported this motion at a recent meeting of the North-Western Regional Assembly. Balanced regional development is essential to provide health care facilities for the citizens of the West and North West citizens on a par with those living in the East and South. She said there was a five-year survival rate in the East of the country of 86% among cancer patients in contrast with an 80% survival rate in the West of the country. Many of the facilities in the West are in old buildings and infrastructure needs to be upgraded to provide good facilities. It is in the national Development plan to provide a dedicated Cancer Care Centre for UH Galway but progress has been slow. She welcomes the announcement last friday from Minister Donnelly that dedicated Cancer Care Centre for UH Galway is now listed under the HSE Capital Plan.  This is of huge significance for County Roscommon.

Cllr. Ward welcomed the motion as a member of the HSE forum. He said he previously lobbied for breast check facilities for county Roscommon and this was very successful.

Cllr. Naughten supported the motion and the need to bring facilities up to standard for the people of the west. Cllrs Crosby, Shanagher and Fitzmaurice also supported the motion.

Cllr. Ward then informed the meeting that he was instrumental in setting up the Rural Car Scheme in South Roscommon and its purpose was to bring people to hospital appointments.  He stated that now is the time to get this project back on track and get funding available.

It was PROPOSED by Cllr. Ward

             SECONDED by Cllr. Shanagher

That the Rural Car Scheme be reinstated and proposed the reintroduction of taxi services provided for persons availing of hospital appointments with a nominal charge for users to defray fuel costs incurred by the drivers.

Cllr. Naughten suggested that the scheme had previously been funded by the Department of Transport under the rural transport scheme. This should be rolled out across Roscommon and other counties too.

A/Director of Services Fiona Ní Chuinn said the Rural Social Car Scheme was previously operated under Roscommon LEADER Partnership. Roscommon Co Co and LEADER recently met with Local Link services about the necessity of such a service as Roscommon is a rural county.  Two applications have been made for the provision of community car schemes which are currently being considered.

Cllr. Callaghan said that as the Chair of the  Longford Westmeath Community Transport CLGhe will request an update at the committee’s next meeting in January. He also hopes to invite the manager of the Local Link in the area to a meeting of the Council to outline the services it operates and the opportunities to improve the services in the future.