The way in which patients with neurological conditions are managed in the Republic is an "absolute scandal", according to a senior doctor treating these patients.
Dr Orla Hardiman, a consultant neurologist at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital, yesterday told the Oireachtas Health Committee patients still had to wait 18 months to see a neurologist once referred by a GP. She said the service was grossly understaffed and underfunded and this was well known.
Some €3 million was allocated in last year's budget to improve the service, she said, and a commitment was made to use some of this money to appoint four more consultant neurologists - in Dublin, Waterford, Limerick and Sligo - but the jobs hadn't even been advertised yet.
She said it took six months for the HSE to draw up a plan for the spending of the money and then when one arm of the organisation had approved funding for the new consultant posts, another arm seemed to be holding up the filling of them. "It's deeply frustrating to us as you can imagine," she said.
Also, she said, if the service was properly funded it would reduce the number of people ending up in A&E.
She said she was on call this week and admitted three people through A&E who had chronic conditions which got worse while they waited to see a specialist. One of them was a woman with a brain tumour.
"It's an absolute scandal the way we are managing our neurological conditions in Ireland . . . we are doing a dreadful job in the way we treat people." This was despite the fact that patients who received early intervention had better outcomes.
Dr Hardiman described the €4 million allocated in the latest Budget for the neurosciences next year as "a drop in the ocean" and "not nearly enough". She said the State needed up to 40 more consultant neurologists as there were about 400,000 people with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
Mags Rogers of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland told the committee there were areas of the State with no consultant neurologist. These included the northwest, midwest and southeast.
A review of the needs of neurological patients is currently being undertaken by the HSE and is due to be published early next year.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said later she accepted there was a shortage of consultant neurologists and she was committed to appointing more. It took considerable time to recruit consultants, she said, sometimes because some are returning from overseas. However, she said she would raise the delay in appointing the four consultants which Dr Hardiman had referred to with the HSE.