About 200 patients throughout the country are on an urgent waiting list for a bed at the national neurosurgery centre in Beaumont, according to a senior surgeon at the Dublin hospital.
The condition of 10 of those patients is life-threatening, said Prof Ciarán Bolger, head of research and development in neurosurgery at Beaumont and head of clinical neurosurgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.
He was speaking to The Irish Times yesterday after an inquest on a woman who died during an operation in Beaumont's neurosurgery centre.
He said the computer guide system in the operating theatre had broken down during five of the last six neurosurgery procedures which he had carried out in Beaumont.
While this made the operations more difficult, the procedures had to continue, he said.
"Various other machines used in the clinic also regularly break down," he said.
According to Prof Bolger, there has been no increase in the number of neurosurgeons working in the health service in 25 years, despite a dramatic increase in the population. Fewer neurosurgery operating slots are available nowadays than 25 years ago, he added.
He said a further 1,000 non-urgent patients are on a waiting list for a bed at the neurosurgery centre, "but those people don't have a chance of getting in". The centre has about 80 beds.
Cork University Hospital is the only other hospital in the State with a neurosurgery department, but it is limited by manpower and medical equipment in what it can do, he said.
"The national neurosurgery service is a mess," Prof Bolger said. "We have nine neurosurgeon consultants in Ireland, six in Beaumont and three in Cork.
"For our population we should have 16, in line with the UK, which has the lowest in Europe. By US and continental Europe standards, we should have 20 to 30."
Repeated promises to advance neurosurgery conditions in the Republic by former minister for health Micheál Martin and current Health Minister Mary Harney had not been followed through, Prof Bolger said.