A senior consultant paediatrician has resigned from his job at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork.
Dr David Coghlan, who has worked since 2002 in the newly constituted Southern Area of the Health Service Executive (HSE), is moving to Tallaght Hospital. He said a lack of resources forced him to move.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Irelandtoday, Dr Coghlan said his job "became untenable" after the HSE failed to provide the funding required.
He said it was important to help children suffering from disabilities in their first three years of life but that waiting lists for specialist therapists such as physiotherapists, psychologists and speech-and-language therapists were too long in the Southern Area.
Dr Coghlan said there was a danger that children with physical and learning disabilities who were previously cared for in the community may now have to travel to Dublin to receive the requisite care.
He said he had redesigned a facility to provide care for children but that the health board had failed to provide the funding and backup services needed to keep it open.
Dr Coghlan called on the Government to act to rectify what he described as a system failure. He said the system was concerned with fighting fires, leaving it little time to devise policy and action.
However, in a statement released today to ireland.com, the HSE Southern Area said it was committed to the development of paediatric services in the region and would deliver an action plan in June 2005.
The statement said a working group had been established "with paediatric consultant Dr David Coghlan to ensure agreed arrangements across all services for the assessment and treatment of children are delivered in a co-ordinated way.
"The working group has made substantial progress and will deliver an action plan in June 2005. This process was agreed in discussions between the Mercy University Hospital, HSE Southern Area and Dr Coghlan."
Dan Boyle of the Green Party said Dr Coghlan’s move was part of an "unacceptable trend" and called on the Government to address this issue when the Cabinet meets in Cork tomorrow.
Mr Boyle said that Cork "is suffering unnecessarily from the drift of staff back to the capital.
"This news is particularly unfortunate for the Mercy Hospital where considerable uncertainty already exists over the future of the children’s leukaemia unit due to the impeding retirement of Professor Peter Carney," Mr Boyle added.
