A support group for patients with renal failure has pledged to build a €1 million holiday centre with dialysis facilities in the south-east if the State will agree to run it.
The chief executive of the Irish Kidney Association said the proposed new facility in Tramore, Co Waterford, which would have five renal dialysis stations, would have the potential to provide a week-long break for up to 200 people.
Mr Mark Murphy said yesterday the problem for the association was that it could not get the country's health boards to agree to operate the proposed centre.
Dialysis patients from all over the country and not just from one regional health board area would be able to avail of the holiday centre under the Irish Kidney Association's plans.
He said the Irish Kidney Association was pinning its hopes for the establishment of the centre on the new centralised Health Service Executive, which will take over the running of health services from the health boards from early in the New Year.
Mr Murphy said there were hardly any dialysis holidays for patients at present.
He added that dialysis units in hospitals around the country were so over-crowded it was almost impossible for patients to secure facilities for a break in another part of Ireland.
He said most people were nervous about taking vacations abroad, although there were readily available services.
Mr Murphy said it would cost close to €1 million to upgrade a current facility and to furnish another building on the Tramore site.
The Irish Kidney Association said the number of people receiving dialysis has soared by 63 per cent since 2001.
The association said there were now 1,100 patients receiving dialysis.
However, the association said the number of dialysis stations in public hospitals had only risen by 16.5 per cent over the same period.
"There is one centre in the midlands lying unopened for about a year and a half. It will remain idle as a consultant is only being appointed in January," Mr Murphy said.
The South Eastern Health Board was currently paying about €900,000 a year for taxis to transport dialysis patients, he added.
The association said there had been promises to expand the dialysis unit at Beaumont Hospital from 16 stations to 40 for the past decade. Mr Murphy said dialysis units in several hospitals, including Beaumont and Waterford, were now operating throughout the night, which caused serious discomfort to patients.
The association said the State was now buying facilities in a private dialysis centre, in Dublin at a cost of €435 per dialysis.
Mr Murphy said with three treatments per week this would work out at about €70,000 per person, with about €30,000 on top of this for further hospital costs. He estimated that if a patient was being treated in a suitable public hospital service, it would cost €50,000.
