A boy placed on a waiting list for urological surgery in December 1997 is still awaiting treatment more than three years later.
He is one of 19 children and teenagers on the waiting list for urological surgery at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Dublin. They are caught in the middle of a dispute about which of three hospitals should take over the speciality.
The Eastern Regional Health Authority says arrangements are being made to have seven teenagers over 16 treated in adult hospitals.
The only surgeon in Our Lady's who can carry out the complex surgery threatened to withdraw from the urology programme late last year because he is being offered only temporary contracts and because nobody could be found to fill a nursing vacancy on the programme, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Comhairle na nOspideal, which regulates the appointment of consultants, recommended in 1998 that specialist paediatric surgery be concentrated at Our Lady's.
The move has been resisted by the Children's Hospital, Temple Street, and Tallaght General Hospital. Because of the impasse the surgeon, Mr Fergal Quinn, has been appointed only on a temporary basis, usually for three to six months at a time and more recently for one year.
Urological surgery includes treating structural abnormalities of the genito-urinary organs.
The hospital's chief executive, Mr Paul Kavanagh, said Our Lady's agreed that urological surgery should be concentrated in one hospital but was not insisting that this be Our Lady's.
"If the decision is that it ought to be carried out somewhere else, so be it," he said.
The ERHA said it had drawn up proposals to put to the three hospitals in an effort to resolve the issue. In the meantime, it is in discussions with Our Lady's as to how the other 12 children can be treated rapidly, either in the hospital itself or elsewhere.
Mr Kavanagh said sending the children to the UK for treatment posed difficulties, as aftercare could involve a number of trips back to the UK.
The rise in admissions through the emergency department at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny has been almost exactly matched by a fall in admissions from the waiting list, figures given to the hospital's executive management board suggest.
In January the number of emergency admissions rose by 338 to 1,053 while planned admissions fell by 303 to 141. The hospital is undergoing expansion to provide 28 new inpatient beds. The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has 13 vacancies for permanent medical laboratory technicians. A spokeswoman said many technicians preferred better-paid jobs in pharmaceutical companies and other private-sector employments.
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