Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

"That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government to ensure:

- that the vacant posts in Beaumont Hospital in urology, with an interest in transplantation, be categorised as very urgent and receive an exemption to the current pay scales on offer;

- that the recent practice of instructing transplant patients to attend hospital Emergency Departments be complemented by providing access to Senior Specialist Nurses or attending Renal Registrars first; and

- the commencement of the Treatment Abroad fund to provide dual kidney and pancreas and pancreas only transplants for people on the waiting list so that the available donated Irish organs can be utilised.”

The issue with respect to Beaumont Hospital and the situation regarding the retirement of Professor David Hickey is causing great anxiety among the 526 people who are awaiting kidney transplants and the eight people who are awaiting pancreatic transplants. As we can imagine, the uncertainty surrounding organ donations services in such a life and death situation is a concern for a patient who is waiting for a telephone call regarding their situation.

We included the first point in the motion following consultation with those who are experts in the organ donation area. The current pay scale being offered to recruit a new surgeon is €110,000. That can be compared to a pay scale of €700,000 on offer in the United States for the same level of expertise. It is little wonder that the four attempts to fill the post have not succeeded. The description for the post needs to be changed to some extent and the pay scale on offer must be breached. Otherwise, it does to matter how many times the HSE advertises the post, when we are competing with Canada, the United States, England and Australia for the same very small pool of experts we will not win that battle. The Minister must overcome the issue of breaching the pay scale for this post.

I note from a reply the Minister gave Senator Colm Burke in response to a Commencement matter he raised on this issue - I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply to this motion - that the Minister did not address the issue that these patients are being instructed to attend accident and emergency departments. As the Minister will be well aware, the last thing a transplant patient, who is ill, should do, or should be told to do, is to go to an accident and emergency department but that is what these patients have been told to do. A clear message needs to be sent form the Department that such advise is being reversed and that access to specialist nurses will be made available for these patients, as it was available in the past. The advice that has been given beggars belief and obviously that came from someone who does not understand the risks of sending a transplant patient into an accident and emergency department where he or she will pick up an additional infection, if he or she does not have one already. It can life threatening for a person to go there. Those patients need to access to specialist nurses and to the treatment abroad fund. I look forward to the Minister's reply on that point. I note the Minister stated in that reply that every effort is being made. Four attempts have been made to fill this post without success. A fifth attempt will hardly be successful if the same pay scale and conditions are offered. Unless additional funding is put in place, we will get the same result.