The family of a man caught in the middle of a dispute in two UK hospitals over whether he is suitable for a lung transplant said yesterday that the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, had made no new intervention.
The sister of Mr Billy Burke, Ms Lisa Burke, said the only person who could help her brother now was the Minister.
Mr Burke, from Killorglin, Co Kerry, has cystic fibrosis and has been waiting for a lung transplant for three-and-a-half years.
The 29-year-old is on oxygen for 24 hours a day an takes 70 tablets. Under an agreement between the State and the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, England, the hospital carries out all lung transplants for Irish people in return for which all lungs donated in Ireland are given to only that hospital. Mr Burke was taken off the waiting list in Newcastle.
Mr Burke said yesterday: "I don't know how long I'll be able to keep going."
When transplant teams in Dublin and in Manchester both said he was suitable for a transplant, he should never have been taken off the list in Newcastle.
"Newcastle seems to be cherry-picking Irish patients," he said.
"I'm not about to lie down and become a casualty of this bureaucracy. I've fought too long and too hard to be allowed to die over something as stupid as this," he said.
The Minister had to stand up and take responsbility. It was too late for promises. Action had to be taken, he added.
The Minister said in the Dáil on Wednesday he had been in contact with the UK Secretary of State for Health and had been told Mr Burke was on a waiting list for a suitable donor in a Manchester hospital.
He denied that Newcastle had exclusive rights to lungs donated in Ireland but said it had a first-call based on suitability.
Yesterday, his sister Ms Burke told The Irish Times that her brother's times was running out.
She said she had met the Minister at the end of January and he had made a call, but there had been no new intervention since.
"We can't wait any longer," Ms she said.
Newcastle had taken her brother off the waiting list in February 2003 because they said he had a lung infection.
Ms Burke said her brother had gone to the Manchester hospital for a second opinion. They took extensive tests there for over two weeks and had said he was suitable for transplant. The infection he had was very common in cystic fibrosis patients.
However, she said, that unless Manchester received Irish organs, they could not do it, and Newcastle refused to co-operate. British patients were receiving Irish lungs.
"Irish doctors have asked Newcastle to put Billy back on the waiting-list. The infection is dormant. It will be removed with the lung," she said.
"All we want is for Irish donor lungs to be sent from Ireland to Manchester."