Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I am replying to this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney. Prosthetics services in Cork currently involve a number of private service providers working out of St. Mary's Orthopaedic Hospital, St. Finbarr's Hospital and North Valley Business Centre, Blackpool, and the National Rehabilitation Hospital, which provides a service on the St. Finbarr's Hospital campus. The service currently operating from St. Mary's Orthopaedic Hospital campus is one of a number of services to which the HSE has been referring a number of its patients over the years. I wish to assure the House that the HSE has no plans to change the arrangements whereby public patients can access this service.

The HSE is, however, planning to move the prosthetics services currently based at St. Finbarr's Hospital. The premises being used for this service are no longer fit for purpose and the HSE is satisfied that the interests of the users of the service will best be served by relocating the current National Rehabilitation Hospital-delivered and HSE-sponsored amputee clinic from St. Finbarr's Hospital to a purpose-built facility at the Mercy University Hospital, Cork.

Amputee rehabilitation is specialist rehabilitation and needs to be done under the care of a consultant in rehabilitation medicine. The HSE's aim is to ensure that a comprehensive rehabilitation service is available to persons who have had or will have an amputation. The service which will operate from the Mercy University Hospital will be a consultant-led service, subject to all the tenets of good clinical governance and best practice. The necessary specialist technical staff will be available on a daily basis and a consultant in rehabilitation medicine with a sub-specialty interest in the rehabilitation of amputees will provide a service on a weekly basis. This represents a substantial upgrading from the service levels currently available at St. Finbarr's. It will be open to patients currently attending the service at St. Mary's to switch their attendance to the new Mercy service, if they so wish.

The consultations on the new facilities at the Mercy Hospital were undertaken at every stage of planning and development. This included meetings with representatives of Amputee Ireland. These initiatives demonstrate the HSE's commitment to improving the provision of this important rehabilitation and ongoing care services for people who have undergone an amputation or who have otherwise suffered the loss of a limb.

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