Ill pensioner demands radiotherapy answers

Terrified that the she might discover that the shadows found in both her lungs might be cancer, she reached for a bottle of water and her local newspaper, The Sentinel, to help take her mind off what lay ahead - a PET scan (a nuclear medical imaging technique) in the Royal Victoria Hospital. However, as she read The Sentinel’s front page ‘Exclusive’ on how the Radiotherapy Unit for Altnagelvin went from being on a list of five ‘highest priority’ health projects, to being dropped from the priority list altogether within two and a half hours, she became increasingly angry.

The pensioner has now called on anyone responsible for overturning the ‘highest priority’ recommendation to resign, and as she launched her letter-writing campaign to newly elected councillors and MLAs, she vowed she would not rest until she was sure a purpose-built radiotherapy unit was created on the Altnagelvin site.

Traumatic

The past two months have been a traumatic period in Maisie’s life; not only had her youngest sister died at the start of April, but, after a visit to her ‘breathing nurse’ follow-up medicals showed there were dark spots in both Maisie’s lungs. They were small, but they were there, and given Maisie’s previous periods of ill health, the medical professionals were concerned. A biopsy proved inconclusive and Maisie, who will be 70 in July, was urgently referred to the Royal Victoria.

“This has been ongoing for a while, because I do have lung problems, but this most recent time came about when I went into see my breathing nurse in the centre in the Waterside. The first CAT scan I had was a year past in November past, and the doctor had said there was a speck on my lung and they had informed Mr Thompson, the breast specialist at Altnagelvin. So I was in hospital with my chest again, that was a year past in October and I had another CAT scan in November, but I never heard about that CAT scan up until the past two months. Those scans were done in Altnagelvin,” she said.

“I had to go to Belfast to have the PET scan because you cannot get it done in Derry, so I went on the bus with my daughter Lynn. We decided we needed to go very early because I cannot be pushed and shoved because I would start getting very breathless, so we got the 9.30am bus up and it left us off at just after 11am or so. The appointment as 12.30pm and we got a taxi up to the hospital. I have a senior pass so I got for free, but my daughter had to pay and it was £3.50 each way for the taxi.”

Asked how she felt about having to make the journey to Belfast, Maisie said she “felt ill about it”.

“This was like the last ‘yea or nay’ for me, because I got the camera done and they took biopsies of my lungs and that came back inconclusive and that is why I had to go to Belfast for this scan. I don’t know what he is going to say, but hopefully it is ‘nay’, but I am pure sick with just thinking about it,

“Sitting in the bus I was looking out at nice scenery going up the road, but with a lot on my mind. I have went up the road being sick, and if you are sick that is an awful, awful trek. So I was sitting there and said ‘Give me a drink of that water now Lynn’, and she handed me over the bag and the paper was in it and I thought ‘What the hell’s that? Cancer Centre, the shocking truth?’ And I am looking and trying to see what the hell’s this and I had to read it twice and whenever I started reading I could not read it quick enough. I read on down and read the dates, and I tried to read on...” overcome, Maisie falls silent and tears fill her eyes.

Asked how she felt, travelling to Belfast for an examination which could result in a cancer diagnosis, she says: “I didn’t actually feel for me or what I was going to Belfast for, it was about all the people that needs this...That was my concern, the people that are travelling and them very sick.

“This service is needed by people on both sides of the border. The money was forthcoming from the Republic and is still there, and if the politicians stopped dragging their heels...”

Stressing that ordinary people had to manage their finances and keep within their own budgets when it came to heat, light and food, and budgeting for priorities if there were unforeseen circumstances, she said, stabbing the paper and adding: “This here is unforgivable, what they have done here. Why are these people sitting in Stormont today? I have been out with the Pink Ladies and spoke to the First Minister and he assured me the unit would come. It has to come and whatever ministers come in now you can be sure it will have to come, because I am not going to rest until it’s done.”

Tears

Brimming with tears, Maisie continued, saying Mr McGimpsey should resign as an MLA: “If this was Mr McGimpsey and his colleagues’ decision on their own they should not be where they are today. They should resign.”

Maisie said the first prong of attack would be to write to her local councillors and newly elected MLAs seeking their support and asking them to strive to ensure the unit would be built as soon as possible.

“I will write now to the MLAs, and I will include them all,” she said.

Maisie adds: “I have got a medical team that looks after me, from my consultants down to the ward clerk and cleaners. I have got a full team who look after me very well and of whom I am very proud. They need the tools to do the job and if it is within my power I will most certainly go to the end of my days to make sure that it is got for them, because my wellbeing is their concern, and if they are concerned about me then why shouldn’t I go that extra mile for them?”