Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly. I thank the Senator for raising the matter.

The Minister announced yesterday that an inquiry is to be set up into the events relating to the case of a 14 year old girl from Leitrim who lost an opportunity for a liver transplant due a failure in patient transportation facilities.

The Minister has been in contact with the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, which has undertaken to co-ordinate an inquiry into the events and circumstances surrounding the failure by the Health Service Executive's patient transport services to transfer the teenager to London in time for the operation.

HIQA will work with all of the relevant agencies involved. It will clarify the facts that led to this situation and will report to the Minister, Deputy Reilly, with recommendations on how best to operate transport arrangements to ensure such a failure does not occur in future.

The Minister expressed his deep concern and sympathy to the family over the traumatic events that have led to this lost opportunity. The Minister would also like to assure the family that the purpose of the HIQA inquiry is to ensure that their family and others in a similar predicament do not face such a heartbreaking outcome in future.

It would not be appropriate to get into the detail of the matter until there is a full understanding of the sequence of events, which HIQA will seek to establish.

An air ambulance service is currently provided by the Air Corps through a service level agreement between the Department of Health and the Department of Defence. The Air Corps service provides for the following: inter-hospital transfer of patients with spinal or other serious injury or illness; neonates requiring immediate medical intervention in Ireland; patients requiring specialised emergency treatment in the UK; organ retrieval teams within Ireland; and paediatric patients requiring immediate medical intervention in Ireland.

In this particular case the normal stand-by Air Corps helicopter was unavailable as it had been called to another emergency.

There was a short window of time in which the transplantation of the liver could have taken place. The confusion in arranging transport for the teenager in response to the call that the liver had become available led to a delay. This resulted in the transplant coordinator in London deciding that the young girl would not arrive in time for the transplant to take place and subsequently the operation was cancelled.

The HSE national ambulance service has a maritime and aviation operation manual, which is reviewed on an annual basis. This deals with all types of missions in respect of aero-medical transport of patients to the HSE from the Air Corps and the Irish Coast Guard.

Since January 2011 to date, 41 air ambulance missions assisting liver transplant patients, neonatal patients, serious illness patients and spinal injury patients have been enacted, both nationally and internationally. The Irish Coast Guard has facilitated the HSE with the transport of a transplant patient in the past few months, and has assisted the national ambulance services on approximately 15 other occasions.

The Minister awaits the outcome of the HIQA review in order to address any deficiencies in the current air ambulance service to avoid a similar occurrence in the future.