Ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py ser­vices at the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) are be­ing of­fered to pa­tients on a pri­or­i­ty ba­sis.

This is be­cause a ma­chine, the Cobolt 780 Ther­a­tron, used for ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py at the Na­tion­al Ra­dio­ther­a­py Cen­tre, St James Med­ical Com­plex, is out of ser­vice.

A re­lease from the NWRHA ad­vised ra­di­a­tion ser­vices would con­tin­ue to be op­er­a­tional but were be­ing of­fered on a pri­or­i­ty ba­sis. Its Cobolt Elite ma­chine re­mains ful­ly func­tion­al.

"We are work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly with our part­ners to en­sure that the ma­chine is re­paired in a time­ly man­ner," the re­lease added. The health au­thor­i­ty says it is mak­ing every ef­fort to re­store full ser­vices at the cen­tre as a mat­ter of ur­gency.