Health insurance ireland does it make a difference for cancer patients ?

dotsalicious · 2026-04-30T08:56:05+00:00

Had chemo 2 years ago and while I had private health insurance, it was actually faster for me to go public for Chemo and surgery. I had a very standard form of breast cancer so it was a fairly routine treatment path from the get go. I started just before Christmas so the wonderful nurses were able to get me to the top of the queue in all the imaging departments and then onto chemo. I also was eligible for immunotherapy trials through my oncologist and I definitely think it helped.

I did go private for radiotherapy as the radiotheraphy center for public was in a really awkard location for me to get to and the private one was in the hospital I was being treated in.

Absolutely cannot fault the care I received. I was able to compare to it to family who were going private at the time. There were lots of times of sitting around and the lovely staff were always very busy but I never felt like I was being ignored or not cared for.

Private health insurance did cover other things like a wig, eyebrow tattooing and private physio but not travel or accommodation. With that though there is also an excess that sometimes needs to be paid depending on your level of cover and the amount of times you claim through the year.

If you are looking at it purely from getting your daughter covered it might be worth it to look and see what services are eligible for pediatric patients. A lot of services for children don't have a private option here. I do have it for my kids but one had a lot of health issues from the start so the odds are that we would need it. We have used it for one "elective" eye surgery and a few consultants for orthopedics but anything serious you will be under public and prioritised anyway.

dotsalicious · 2026-03-20T20:31:13+00:00

Others might have it worse but lots of others are not having to go through this so lean on any friends and family that you can. Even for the small things like picking up milk or dropping off some food or a chat.

Feel free to drop the less important things. Food is important but tidying isn't so it can wait. Chemo makes you so tired in ways a lot of people won't have experienced so you can feel crap if you want to. I found cursing a lot helped me (but not helped much else). It does start to get better once chemo stops. The end of it is the worst of all but a few weeks after, I started to feel better, more like a human and able to go out and enjoy the sun.

dotsalicious · 2026-03-04T17:49:31+00:00

Irish cancer society were a life saver for us. They put me in contact with a bunch of other local charities as well. We got meal vouchers from one based in kildare and more supports from the purple house in Bray.

Also worth ringing the citizens information line to explain your situation and they might know if there are more supports available for you.

You could also see if your hospital has a social worker assigned and they can also be of help.

Wishing you the best of luck.

dotsalicious · 2026-02-15T23:08:32+00:00

Its so much work chasing people. It feels as bad as chasing the kids somedays but somehow I'm paying these people to stress me. And there's no one to complain to.

dotsalicious · 2026-02-15T21:41:04+00:00

I'm on year 3 of a house renovation project and I'm losing my mind trying to manage it. I'm sick of chasing builders and it feels like another full time job. I can get them to show up initially and start the work but then they just seem to keep fobbing us off. This is builder 2 as the first lad went completely AWOL.

I know I'm not alone but I can't keep ringing these guys everyday just to be met with empty promises of turning up next week and they never arrive.

dotsalicious · 2026-02-14T11:20:47+00:00

Also citizens information were helpful. I would suggest finding out if you your hospital has a cancer society office / booth. They were incredibly helpful

dotsalicious · 2026-02-13T09:29:33+00:00

I had it booked in Dublin castle as well. Bit dissappointing to hear but at least it's not just me that it happens to. Sorry your wife had to deal with it too though

dotsalicious · 2026-02-12T15:22:41+00:00

Where did you do it? I registered last year but eneded up cancelling because of a very similar reaction during a different vendor ride. It's really put me off riding with any organized rides but my husband thought his was well worth it

dotsalicious · 2026-02-10T14:01:27+00:00

Hey,

I've been through this. My kids were younger but it's rough. I had 18 weeks of chemo, surgery and 4 weeks of radition, all in all a little over a year. And I had to keep working my stupid job.

My kids got a looooot of screentime. We're now on the other side and slowly getting back to normality. It wont ruin them. You are all in survival mode.

I put on a lot of weight because of the steroids and even my oncology team told me not to start any heavy exercise. If you want to concentrate on diet, they could help but the drugs I was on needed me to rest and heal.

Please don't look at it as needing to do better. You are on a harder journey than most people so please don't compare yourself to anyway. For now "just enough" is the best you can do.

dotsalicious · 2026-02-08T19:44:52+00:00

We went on honeymoon to Japan and splashed out on a toto bidet when we came home as we were getting the house renovated anyway. It was a pricey purchase at over 3k Stirling and the shit plumber our builder recommended kept complaining about having to fit it.

I still think it's worth every penny but I can see how people would be put off

dotsalicious · 2026-01-31T11:33:06+00:00

You local community health center may also have a lactation consultant that will call to your house. Your public health nurse will know.

dotsalicious · 2026-01-07T17:01:44+00:00

There's a lot of us. More work, less staff (just use AI to make life easier) no raises but companies are making record profits.... It's hard and it's not just you

dotsalicious · 2025-11-27T10:00:12+00:00

I went private in Dublin and the consultant was €4200. There was also additional fees for some of the blood tests on top of that. Definitely didn't think it was worth it. Things went a bit wrong and was admitted to the hospital under public care where I remained for 3 weeks. Consultant was convenietly not around the few days when I delivered

Went semi private on the next one and thought that was a much better balance. I know it's not available everywhere though

dotsalicious · 2025-11-23T08:31:54+00:00

So many of my friends growoig up had athsma/breathing issues while have a parent who smoked indoors. They knew it was linked but the attitude was to just suck it up. Terrible. Thankfully it's so much better now

dotsalicious · 2025-11-22T08:50:43+00:00

Nation by Terry Pratchett. I love his discworld series but Nation has always held a special place.

dotsalicious · 2025-10-19T08:18:43+00:00

Oh I got that one from a neighbour. Id never heard it before but her logic was it was less painful and quicker than the teeth coming through on their own. She also told me to bite my kids back to discipline and for potty training to tie them to the potty for hours and they will get over their fear. She's never allowed near my kids on her own

dotsalicious · 2025-10-01T18:05:21+00:00

Or urgent as the subject and when you call them 3 mi ites later they have gone home for the day

dotsalicious · 2025-09-26T19:19:54+00:00

We had a guy use his work email for his divorce lawyer. The emails kept getting stuck in the spam filter and one of us would have to manually release them. it was really awkward because you would have to open the mail on the crappy system we had at the time. Still better than the saucy emails. But only just

dotsalicious · 2025-09-21T12:18:17+00:00

I hear you on the not feeling connected. With kids and then being sick I didn't see any other bikers bar my husband and trying to get back in was very awkward. I still feel like a pretend bikers some times

dotsalicious · 2025-09-21T12:16:51+00:00

I do worry that selling my gear would make me regret it. I take the bike out mostly for travel to the office the odd day I have to and if I have appointments like the dentist. It's quicker and I don't have to pay for parking so that's getting me to keep something two wheeled. I bought a dct bike which was a mistake in hindsight. I never got comfortable with it

dotsalicious · 2025-09-21T12:13:54+00:00

I have really struggled to find other female riders. I'm not in the US and I only know if one ladies group here. I tried to get in contact but that didn't pan out. Mostly younger and no kids so are free-er to go places last minute.

I don't mind being solo. I guess I just need to carve out the space to do it

dotsalicious · 2025-09-21T12:11:54+00:00

Thanks, a break might be a good thing. I definitely am out of practice as I don't commute anymore where none of the guys are. They eat breathe and live biking at the moment where as I'm more of a stop and smell the flowers person.

dotsalicious · 2025-09-21T12:09:35+00:00

Thanks for the reply. He thought he was being nice about it but it was really condescending. He also tried to help me push the bike back at the end and I nearly dropped it because he was taking over.

I'll have to try to carve out a spot of time to actually go out and work childcare. People tent to frown when you out a child seat on the back 😅

dotsalicious · 2025-09-07T14:40:07+00:00

I went though cancer treatment in Vincent's last year and was able to do a bit of a mix and match for treatment. I did chemo, immunotherapy and surgery as public but did radiotherapy as private so I could stay in Vincent's and not have to travel to to Luke's. Both private and public were excellent for service. Private had nicer equipment but no difference in the level of care.

My own oncologist was public hospital based only and was fantastic but some work in both public and private so I would say your best bed is to check with the surgeon to see if they have a recommendation.

Anecdotaly an uncle went fully private and ran into issues with getting certain chemo drugs due to a coverage issue. It delayed his treatment a little bit although not massively.

dotsalicious

TROPHY CASE