Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and his office for allowing us to raise this issue and thank Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, who organised a briefing by Mr. Sherif Sultan, the vascular surgeon at University College Hospital Galway and the Galway Clinic, on this topic yesterday. It is not even a funding issue. Someone just needs to take responsibility in the three counties of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon for deciding who pays for this machine.

The arterial assist machine increases arterial blood flow to the leg, and 550 patients in Ireland currently use it. None of these patients is in the three counties I mentioned because of a disagreement between different units of the HSE on who funds this. To rent one of these machines for 90 days costs €1,200 and it can save a leg from amputation. It is for people with severe vascular conditions in their legs who, if their condition deteriorated, might need to have the leg amputated, with all of the associated social, personal and financial costs. There are 127 patients on a waiting list and an ArtAssist machine for those 127 patients would cost less than half the cost of seven amputations.

In University College Hospital Galway, I could be in the room next to the Minister of State but because I am from Mayo I would not get the machine while someone who lives five miles up the road in Sligo would get it. It is ridiculous. I do not know if it is a funding issue but heads must be knocked together to make this service available to the patients in those three counties.

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