A blueprint for the development of urology services across the State has been sharply criticised by Dr Jerry Cowley, the Independent Mayo TD and GP.
The plan, published by Comhairle na nOspidéal, recommends that services be provided from regional units. It says that the majority of regions should have a single urology unit, based in the major regional hospital for that area, which should provide outreach services to other hospitals in the region.
In the west, for example, it says that Galway Regional Hospital should provide outreach services to Mayo General Hospital, Roscommon County Hospital and Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe.
Dr Cowley said yesterday that this was totally unacceptable. There was no consultant urologist at the Mayo hospital and patients in Mayo had to depend on visiting physicians from Galway.
Some patients had been waiting more than seven years for a first appointment, he claimed.
He also claimed that by the time some patients he had referred to a consultant were seen, they had advanced cancer.
"It's a thundering disgrace and what they are offering is more of the same," he said.
The comhairle report has acknowledged that there are insufficient urologists in the State. It has recommended that an extra 18 be appointed. There are 27 approved posts at present, the majority of them in Dublin.
As a matter of priority, it said, consultant urologists should be appointed to Waterford Regional Hospital; Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; Sligo General Hospital/Letterkenny General Hospital; and to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore.
It said that the Tullamore hospital should provide outreach services to hospitals in Portlaoise and Mullingar; that Drogheda should provide outreach urology services to hospitals in Cavan, Monaghan, Dundalk and Navan; that Limerick should provide services to Ennis and Nenagh and that Waterford should service hospitals in Kilkenny, Wexford and Clonmel/ Cashel.
Cork city hospitals, it said, should provide outreach services to Bantry General.
In view of the size of the north-west, it recommended a "virtual unit" on two sites, Letterkenny and Sligo, to minimise patient access problems.
The comhairle report will now be considered by the HSE.