Information website

[Ovacare2]

Ovacare and SOCK teamed together with the help of a grant from ESGO Engage (European Network of Gynaecological Cancer Advocacy Groups) to provide an online resource for ovarian cancer in Ireland. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

ovarian-cancer.ie

[daisies]

Hello.

Have just gone through proposed on-line resource on OC and have to say it is excellent. I really can't find anything more that should be included. It is informative, easy to follow, in plain English and yet is not frightening or without hope. The new stagings are very clear to understand.

While it would be great to have more on recurrent/metastatis OC - I realise this is not feasible.

So a great job - and it will be much appreciated by existing OC patients and more particularly by newly diagnosed patients.

Daisies (Maureen)

[Hidden]

Hi there I have also read through this, what hits me is the physco services available in each centre. The only service we have is a gynae liason nurse who referred me to an outside source for counselling. Counselling is not available in the hospitals as far as I am aware. At the moment if you feel you are falling off the wagon, all that is there is Arc Cancer Support House in Cork or Dublin and of course the Ova care site which we all love. This helps us support each other. At my hospital which isnt on the list the gynae liason nurse atttends for a few hours on the day gynae patients attend. If you are just on Avastin like me, it is done towards the end of the week and there is no available help in situ apart from oncology nurses.

[Ovacare2 Administrator OvaCare Team Member in reply to Hidden]

I am just forwarding the information about the Psycho-oncology services that was received from the St. Vincents service. See information below, i hope this is useful. The hospitals listed are the designated cancer centres only.

Patients are advised to ask their treating physician about the availability of psycho-oncology services. Some services are just a nurse/liaison psychiatrist assessment service such as in Cork University Hospital, where as others such as ourselves are psychology led. Also some like ourselves, james' and I think Beaumont are located within the hospital and require referral from medical teams while Limerick and Galway have support centre type set up on the grounds of the hospitals and take self-referrals.

Off the top of my head here are the links I know of:

St Vincent's University Hospital - stvincents.ie/departments/P...

St James's Hospital: stjames.ie/Departments/Depa...

Beaumont Hospital: beaumont.ie/index.jsp?n=273

University Hospital Galway - cancercarewest.ie/support-c...

Cork University Hospital: cuh.hse.ie/Our_Services/Cli...

Limerick:

midwesterncancercentre.ie/c...

St Lukes Hospital Rathgar:

stlukesnetwork.ie/departmen...

More informal counselling support is available from any of the local cancer support centres but this is a support rather than a mental health service.

[daisies in reply to Hidden]

HI Suzuki. Saw your reply and think you may come under CUH, as I think SIVUH comes under CUH. As you know the hospital I attend is never listed, but loads of the services mentioned are available, but it is unfair to ask for it to be included as one of the treating hospitals as it is not considered a centre of treatment.

Hope all OK. & hope to see you on Sat morning for coffee & chat.

Maureen

[Hidden in reply to daisies]

Hi Maureen there is no stopping me yelling any how. I genuinely wasnt told these counselling services were available in hospitals. Yes I shall be there on Saturday and I will bring sellotape for the lips haha

[Hidden]

Thanks for that I was never made aware of the service at CUH, I have a friend in Dublin who was never made aware of those services either. She has a different type of Cancer but found that trying to get to Arc House in Dublin was very difficult as it is in the middle of the City. My hospital is part of the CUH group. I know that my gp did offer to send me for counselling should I need it but maybe he knew about CUH. This indeed is very useful information to have and thank you again

[Ovacare2 Administrator OvaCare Team Member]

The cancer centres are designated for the multidisciplinary discussion and in most cases surgery but chemotherapy is delivered in many of the other hospitals. I am not sure if that clarifies it.

[Missfitz]

Nice website. Good format. Unfortunately, this information needs to get to the general public and increase awareness of signs and symptoms. By the time someone googles this web page - they've been diagnised and probably late stage - advanced - and incurable.

One suggestion I would have - there is a cervical smear test campaign (I'm not sure of the population that are targeted with these letters) could an ovarian cancer awareness leaflet be included in that? Wouldn't it target the right population? Or something along those lines? Send fliers to ICA meetings! Think out side the box! Get the information to the right group of women. Information can and does save lives.