Published: Thursday, 17th December, 2009 6:00pm
Dialysis patients still facing treks to Dublin for treatment
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It's bad enough having to undergo the trauma of dialysis, but having to travel to Dublin for the life-saving treatment ever week is an added stress that twenty seven patients in Westmeath must endure on a weekly basis.
Long taxi journeys to kidney units around Dublin three times a week could be avoided if there were further capacity available at the unit in Tullamore.
Furthermore, the cost of transporting Westmeath patients to the centres in Dublin amounted to approximately €219,000 for the ten month period ending October 2009.
However the HSE says there are plans underfoot to provide additional funding and capacity in Tullamore: "Discussions are at an advanced stage to redirect these 27 patients to the additional capacity unit there," said a spokesperson for the HSE.
"When these patients are redirected to the unit in Tullamore, there will obviously be a saving in the transport costs, and these savings will be allocated back to support the extended renal service in Tullamore," they said. However, they added that there will always be a cohort of renal patients who will have to be treated in centres in Dublin. A dialysis mapping exercise is currently being carried out by the HSE, which aims to solve the problems of taxi journeys and four shift operations at kidney units, and it is hoped this exercise will be completed by early next year.
A total of 1,401 patients currently receive dialysis treatment in Ireland.
