More cancer patients would have been lost without measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's according to Professor and Consultant Medical Oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital Group, John Crowne.
He was speaking as research from the National Cancer Registry of Ireland found one in 12 cancers went undiagnosed during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
Prof Crowne told The Hard Shoulder there were a number of factors involved here.
"People may not remember just the level of fear that we had within and without the health service in the early Spring of 2020," he said.
"We were hearing these horror stories, mainly from Italy, [which] had a huge influence on us at the time of hospitals running out of oxygen, running out of beds, Intensive Care Units being overrun.
"We were desperately concerned about that; I sadly myself saw five of my own patients die from COVID over the course of the pandemic.
"Early on I was very insistent indeed that we really needed to take drastic measures to protect - the ones I felt the responsonsibity were for cancer patients".
'Level of fear'
Prof Crowne said this saw some services, such as screenings, close down or suspend operations.
"There was a major reallocation of resources to deal with the acute needs of very sick patients coming in, in many cases needing intensive care," he said.
"Doctors and nurses had to be moved to those areas.
"Patients themselves had a very understandable level of fear about coming to hospital.
"I suspected many patients that normally would take note of a symptom - perhaps a bit of blood on the toilet paper, or a lump someplace, pain or a cough - might have been somewhat delayed coming in for that".
'Contracting COVID in hospital'
Prof Crowne said there was also "the fear of coming into a health system that was creaking a bit - certainly in that first year - under the rigours of COVID, and the real risk of getting sick from being in hospital."
"There were many, many people contracting COVID in hospitals that year".
He said what was done at the time was the right decision.
"We can't know how many cancer patients would have died if we continued doing business as usual," he said.
"People came into hospitals that, at the time, were full of sick patients, unvaccinated patients, sick staff members - we didn't even understand what the incubation period of the virus was.
"I think we would have lost far more patients if we had not taken the measures we took at the time.
"I think far more cancer patients would have been very ill," he added.
