John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my colleagues and friends here today. It is important that people understand exactly what it is that plastic surgeons do. There is a tendency based on popular literature to trivialise facelifts and cosmesis etc.. Plastic surgeons are also the doctors who deal with the substantial chunk, if not the majority, of serious skin cancer cases, who play a critical role in managing breast cancer and who do unbelievably heroic work dealing with people with severe and life-threatening burns. All of my colleagues here who are involved in plastic surgery will have had the experience of dealing with people who have suffered horrific burns and managing them through severe illnesses. Despite their youth, these are people who over the past ten or 15 years will have seen extraordinary improvements in the outcomes for patients with terrible injuries. The issue of who plastic surgeons are is very important in this country.

I am sure some of my colleagues will raise their eyes to heaven when I ask the following question because it is one I ask of every medical specialty group that appears before the committee. What is the number of plastic surgeons per head of population in Ireland? How do we compare in this regard with the UK and, in general, to continental Europe and North America? The need for regulation in this area is striking. There are few areas in medicine in respect of which there are direct appeals made over the heads of general practitioners by alleged specialists in non-professional literature to encourage people to come for treatments which range from the unproven to the dangerous to the inappropriately applied. There is a problem here. To put this in context, and I obviously have a particular axe to grind because of my interest in cancer, particularly melanoma, we have a melanoma emergency in this country that people are not twigging. The incidence of potentially fatal melanoma in this country has approximately tripled over a 14-year period. Dr. Ormond may correct me if I am wrong but I believe the figures in this regard are 400 in 1998 to 800 in 2008 to approximately 1,200 in 2012. This is a uniquely Irish problem because as we are designed by providence to be under grey misty skies we do not have the same natural protection that other ethnic groups have against the sun, yet for various cultural reasons we very unwisely expose ourselves to the sun. It is critically important that we get the panoply of issues around dermatology and plastic surgery correct. We need more dermatologists to ensure quicker access by GPs in terms of referral of patients who have a spot which potentially could be serious or life threatening. We do not have this right now. While there has been an improvement in terms of rapid access, we still have far too few people in these areas.

For several months last year there was no dermatologist in the sunny south east of Ireland. I am not suggesting there was not one in Dunmore East, Dungarvan or Enniscorthy, rather that there was no dermatologist in the whole of the south east, which is emblematic perhaps of a more profound problem in terms of how health care in this country is planned. I warmly welcome the attendance of my colleagues at this meeting. I am not, in terms of my remarks, being disrespectful of the critical role of the ophthalmologists in this area. That is another day's work. I believe there is also a need to invest in ophthalmic and ophthalmological services in this country. I ask that my colleagues take the issue under discussion today very seriously.

I would welcome if Mrs O'Donnell could when replying say if the European standard has been translated into law in any country?