Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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523. To ask the Minister for Health in view of the fact that there is a waiting list in excess of 200, if there is a specific date for the hiring of five nursing personnel and three EEG technicians needed in the Epilepsy Monitoring Units in Cork University Hospital, two bed unit and Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, four bed unit, to provide a round the clock in-patient service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39344/13]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Cork and Beaumont are two of six regional centres which have been identified by the HSE's Clinical Care Programme for Epilepsy for the provision of specialist epilepsy services. The two Epilepsy Monitoring Units (EMUs) planned for Cork and Beaumont under the Programme will increase pre-surgical evaluation capacity. Monitoring is required for those patients with the worst effects of epilepsy, and patients at these units will require 24/7 care. The HSE has advised that two of the four beds in Beaumont’s Epilepsy Monitoring Unit are open. Nursing staff are currently being recruited and are expected to be in place by the end of October 2013 when the two remaining beds will open. All EEG technician posts have been filled. Critical to the opening of the Regional Epilepsy Monitoring Unit in Cork University Hospital is the requirement to recruit five staff nurses and one Senior and one Basic Grade Neurophysiological Technician. I am advised that the recruitment of the staff required to open the unit is taking longer than anticipated due to the specialist nature of the staff involved. Three nurses have been recruited via the National Recruitment Service and the recruitment of the two remaining staff nurses is at an advanced stage. While the recruitment of these staff on a permanent basis is being progressed, hospital management is progressing a number of options to redeploy staff on a temporary basis to allow the unit to be opened as soon as possible.