Sir, - Elaine Keogh (Health, October 8th) states that the North Eastern Health Board's CEO, Paul Robinson, has plans to appoint the country's first co-ordinator of men's health to ensure that men have access to health services and that men's health issues are dealt with at board level.
I find this quite amazing as the North Eastern Health Board does not employ any consultant urologist to manage the urological cancers that kill many men in the North Eastern Health Board region every year. If the board is serious about men's health, its money would be better spent on appointing consultant urologists to its region, rather than on a men's health co-ordinator.
This, however, is not the only health board region without a urologist. The North Western Health Board, the Midland Health Board and the South Eastern Health Board do not provide this service. With prostate cancer now becoming the greatest cancer killer in Irish men, surely the CEOs should be pushing for and implementing urological units in their respective regions. - Yours, etc.
James M. Smith President, Irish Society of Urology, Dublin 2.