Lung transplant operations will be carried out in the Republic for the first time as a result of a major development plan for heart and lung surgery, The Irish Times has learned.
The long-awaited national plan, to be announced today by the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, is designed to get rid of the long public waiting list for heart surgery, which officially stands at 1,730.
Two entirely new surgical units to carry out heart bypass operations are to be established in Galway and at St James's Hospital, Dublin. The national transplantation centre at the Mater Hospital in Dublin is to be expanded, as is the existing heart surgery unit in Cork.
The upgrading of the national centre, which currently carries out heart transplant operations, will allow the phasing in of lung and heart/lung transplant operations. At present patients requiring such operations travel to the UK, and 30 to 40 are awaiting such operations at any given time.
The units in Cork, Galway and St James's Hospital will carry out less complex cardiac procedures such as heart bypass operations.
Four new cardiac consultants are expected to be appointed, bringing the total in the State to 11. A significant number of other specialist staff will also be recruited and trained to operate the new facilities and the associated intensive care units that must be established.
The link between Crumlin Children's Hospital and the Mater will also be strengthened through the appointment of additional staff. At present Mater consultants and staff travel to Crumlin hospital to carry out heart operations on children, and this practice will be extended.
There is also to be a national register of cardiac procedures carried out in the State to allow a regular audit of the levels of success and the monitoring of any shortcomings in the cardiac service.
The last government had decided to site a second national unit at St James's Hospital. Mr Cowen's announcement of a structure of one national unit and three regional ones follows a review ordered by him shortly after he came into office last June.
Some 2,650 heart surgery operations are carried out in the State each year. The expansion is expected gradually to bring that number up to 3,500. This would represent roughly 1,000 such operations per million population, one of the highest proportions in the world.