I thank my colleague, Deputy Cullinane, for bringing this motion forward. He has been very vocal on these issues, which hit nearly every home in the State. I was personally affected by cancer when my partner at the time, Noel, was very ill. For 18 months, Noel lost a lot of weight and was in a lot of pain. He could barely hold himself up. Noel was yellow. His skin was yellow. His eyes were yellow. He was a bag of bones, yet he was repeatedly sent home from hospital. Noel was shifted between doctors. None of them seemed to talk to each other and because we do not have digital records, there was a complete lack of communication between doctors. Noel could not keep food down. We knew that Noel had cancer. The dogs in the street knew that Noel had cancer, but we had no diagnosis. We had to fight for a medical card. We were paying for petrol and parking costs. We were in and out of hospital, as well as dealing with the pain and the worry. Noel was told he had cancer and then a week later told he did not. Noel was eventually brought to Dublin where he was opened up and it was then we were told the devastating news that he had stage 4 cancer. It was too late. Nothing could be done for him, but Noel, being mister positive, wanted us to use the six months he was given for us to be happy and get married. I set about arranging a wedding. It was during Covid-19 so we could not have all our family with us. I could not help but cry when it came to the words "in sickness and in health" because I knew there would be no health for Noel. We did not even get to celebrate our first anniversary together. At Noel's funeral during Covid-19, we could only have ten people. The sad thing about our story of delayed diagnosis is that we are not alone in this. I hope no other family has to go through this. We need to provide better diagnoses and cancer care for people so that nobody else has to go through this.

Sentiment score: -0.14