Leading NI cancer charity asks Stormont to help save it

One of Northern Ireland’s leading cancer charities fears for its future, having suffered unprecedented financial difficulties due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Cancer Focus NI raises 90% of its money itself, but its shops have had to close and fundraising events – including the Belfast Marathon, in which the charity is a lead partner - have been axed or postponed.

And, while staff have been furloughed, rent on premises still has to be paid.

“We are doing everything we can,” Chief Executive Roisin Foster said.

“We have cut costs, and our costs have fallen because there is no travel and little phone activity, but it is about can we keep going.”

The charity provides counselling and other support services to those with cancer and their families. It also offers cancer prevention programmes and funds scientific research into causes and treatments.

Cancer Focus NI has had to suspend most of its services due to the financial pressure it now finds itself under and to the furloughing of staff.

Ms Foster said the organisation has never really sought official support for core work before, but she has now written to Stormont Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey.

“We cannot manage now,” she said.

“There has been talk about a Government rescue package. Charities like ours should not be forgotten.

“Because we have never called for help before should not mean that we are excluded now.”

She added that cancer charities in particular “have been givers to rather than receivers from the NHS”.

Expressing concern for the future of the organisation and its skilled and committed workers, Ms Foster said: “They are good people and very good at their jobs.”

It comes against a backdrop of routine screening – including for cervical, breast and bowel cancer – being postponed to allow medics to focus on tackling Covid-19.

Ms Foster said that could mean “storing up problems for the future”.

She said: “It does mean that some people will have their cancer diagnosed later than they would have.

“That may mean that they have to have more treatment. It may well have advanced.”

The charity chief executive added that the impact of the pandemic on patients’ state of mind was heart-breaking.

“When you get a cancer diagnosis, you are worrying constantly about whether the treatment will work and will you ever feel or look the same again,” she said.

“On top of that is imposed all the worry about the impact of coronavirus.”

A spokesperson for the Communities Department said these are difficult times and that the minister, Deirdre Hargey, is committed to doing everything possible to protect everyone in society who relies on vital services such as those provided by Cancer Focus NI.

“The minister is aware of the challenges facing the wider charitable sector and is working closely with community and voluntary sector groups and Executive colleagues to urgently develop funding proposals and options on how best to support the sector through this crisis,” the spokesperson said.

“The role of community organisations has never been more important as we seek to protect people who might be vulnerable across our communities.

“The minister has established a voluntary and community sector emergencies leadership group which will play a vital role in supporting the most vulnerable during and after this emergency.”

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