Cancer patients and advocates are once again facing anguish and uncertainty as the launch of a new radiotherapy machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has been postponed until the end of November, deepening concerns about life-saving care amid official silence.
Men’s Cancer Support Group Interim Coordinator Vincent Yearwood told Barbados TODAY the repeated postponements in commissioning a $10-million linear accelerator continue to cause hardship for patients in urgent need of treatment.
“I understand the hospital had said it would have been ready by mid-September,” Yearwood explained. “From the information that has reached us, it now seems they’re saying October, but they haven’t come and said anything to the public at all. So one still doesn’t know what the status of the machine is.
“As we speak, at least one of our members is in Trinidad currently receiving radiation treatment. So, in other words, the disappointment continues, and the QEH hasn’t said a word.”
The linear accelerator, which is used to deliver high-precision radiation therapy to cancer patients, was delivered to Barbados last year. But despite several assurances from health officials, it has yet to be installed and brought into use.
On Thursday, QEH spokesman Shane Sealy acknowledged that the machine’s full installation had been delayed once again owing to construction adjustments that had to be made.
“We’re hoping to have it up and running by the end of November,” Sealy told Barbados TODAY. “Everything in this project has to be precise. What held things up was that, following the civil works, we learned that the floor was out by two millimetres. That had to be corrected because the equipment can only work with exact measurements.”
Those adjustments have now been completed and installation of the accelerator is expected to take place between this month and next, according to Sealy.
“The corrections have been made, and the new accelerator is going to be installed shortly, now that the civil works have been completed. We’re looking to the end of November for it to go live,” he said.
Back in June, Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw expressed frustration in Parliament that the life-saving equipment was still not operational, warning that lives were being lost as a result of the delay.
“We have people dying while waiting. This can’t continue,” Bradshaw declared during debate on a resolution to lease state land at Coverley for a new palliative care facility. “It cannot be that the equipment is sitting there and not being used while people are desperate for treatment. There has to be a sense of urgency.”
Bradshaw, a breast cancer survivor herself, described the matter as one of national importance and urged health authorities to accelerate the process of commissioning the machine.
“We have started the process,” she said. “We know where we want to go. Now we need to act. Lives are on the line.”
In response to Bradshaw’s concerns at the time, health minister Davidson Ishmael sought to assure MPs that the installation of the linear accelerator machine was finally nearing completion.
The minister told lawmakers he was “disheartened” by the fact that the ministry had not yet delivered on the commitment, but due to civil works delays, the project had faced some unfortunate challenges.
He insisted: “Any entity that has any radiation involved, there has to be a special purpose-built facility and space for its housing. Therefore, some of these civil works have taken inordinately long, but the team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is working assiduously to ensure that we can get to the point where the civil works are completed.”
The minister said he had been informed that those civil works were due to be finished that week.
Back in January, the Barbados Cancer Society sounded the alarm on the increasing incidence of colon cancer in the country, attributing it largely to Barbadians’ diet.
The society’s president, Professor David Rosin, said: “Here in Barbados, the commonest cancer is still — despite it being half the population [men] — prostate cancer. There are, in fact, 320 new cases every year out of a population of 285 000 people. That is about 45 per cent of all cancers [reported locally]. It’s really something to worry about. The anxiety here is not only is it the commonest cancer, but it is also unfortunately more aggressive and occurring in younger men.”
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