Up to 4,000 children facing a two-year wait for a first appointment with doctors cannot be seen by the State's leading eye hospital, a top consultant has warned.
The children are on waiting lists at the Rathdown Road Clinic in Dublin, which was itself set up to cope with long delays facing patients at the National Children's Eye Centre at the Children's University Hospital in Temple Street. The warning was given in a letter dated July 20th to the Health Service Executive's (HSE) local health manager, Bernadette Kiberd, from consultant ophthalmologist Michael O'Keeffe.
"It has now come to our attention that because the clinic in Rathdown Road is so overloaded and because there is a two-year waiting time with something like 4,000 children waiting for eye consultation, there is a suggestion that many of these children could now again be seen in the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street.
"This is just not realistically possible. There are neither the facilities nor the staff available. Record numbers of children are being seen. No other paediatric eye centre in the world is seeing such a vast number of children," he wrote.
Temple Street itself is treating 10,000 children annually, some of them repeatedly, while consultants also treat patients with glaucoma and cataracts.
Two community ophthalmologists must be recruited for the Rathdown Road Clinic, said Mr O'Keeffe: "This needs to be done urgently and will, to a large extent, alleviate many of the problems that presently exist."
Though the Rathdown clinic has a long waiting list, it has proven to be "highly effective and efficient as a primary eye care service", he said.
The Temple Street eye clinic "will continue to see any of these kids who are seen by ophthalmologists and who need more urgent specialised treatment and care. That has always been the case and we will continue to provide this care," he promised.
"No other solution will work. In particular, loading the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street with vast numbers of patients will only result in shifting the waiting time and will not work.
"We are always available to talk. We do have the expertise on the ground as we are at the coalface seeing these children. We do know about eye problems and we would be very happy to help solve them," he said.
"Perhaps you would think about consulting us and, perhaps, we could come together and provide a proper solution which will alleviate the problem, provide safe care for children and improve overall healthcare and eliminate the need for the ongoing public criticism," he added.
He sent copies of his letter to Minister for Health Mary Harney and Dublin North TDs "as they face this problem in their daily lives with parents consulting them on a regular basis as to what service is being provided".
Labour Dublin Central TD, Joe Costello said Mr O'Keeffe's letter highlighted ongoing management problems within the HSE.
"It shows that there are serious problems of communications between the HSE and Temple Street," he said.
