Sir, – We refer to the editorial "Health – the ultimate gift" (April 4th), which constructively highlighted the ultimate gift of organ donation.
Calls for a second national kidney transplant centre in Ireland, as quoted in your editorial, are misguided. Investing scarce resources in a new transplant centre at the present time would be a poor use of taxpayers’ money.
Beaumont Hospital embraces its role as the National Kidney Transplant Centre and the multidisciplinary national kidney transplant team provide a 24/7 service.
In its more than 50 years performing renal transplants, Beaumont Hospital has never refused any medically suitable donor kidney offer. A renal transplant has never been cancelled in Beaumont due to lack of beds or staff.
We are extremely proud of our new 21-bed, modern transplant facility that has been in operation since last December. This facility, together with the dedication and ethos of the entire transplant team, ensures we have the ability to deliver a national transplant programme. However, we recognise that constraints in significantly increasing the number of kidney transplants continue to be the perennial scarcity of suitable donor kidneys, as well as the difficulty in recruitment of specialised kidney transplant surgeons due to worldwide shortage of these skills.
We are happy to report that, compared to the same period last year, the number of kidney transplants so far in 2016 has increased by 40 per cent.
While we welcome your editorial’s call for further investment in transplantation, growing upon this level of activity will require targeting future resources where they will most be needed.
Tackling real problems is the best way to get real solutions. – Yours, etc,
Dr CONALL
O’SEAGHDHA,
Clinical Director,
Transplant,
Urology and Nephrology
Directorate;
Mr GORDON SMYTH,
Consultant Urologist
and Transplant Surgeon,
National Kidney
Transplant Centre,
Beaumont Hospital,
Dublin 9.