Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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618. To ask the Minister for Health the reason Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9, has closed the living kidney donor list to new patients, while a theatre that was opened to facilitate more transplants is not being used; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16361/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I am particularly committed to progressing organ donation and transplantation and this is borne out by the record number of transplantations achieved in 2013 and by the increased funding being made available in 2014.

A total of 294 transplants were performed in 2013 - including 38 living kidney transplants. Both of these are record numbers.

The HSE’s National Service Plan for 2014 provides an additional €2.92m for organ donation and transplantation services. The €2.92m will facilitate the appointment of 19 wholetime equivalent staff dedicated to organ donation and transplantation - including consultants, network link nurses, organ procurement officers and quality officers. These staff will comprise a key element of the organ donation effort in each of the hospital groups around the country. They will work to foster a strong culture of organ donation, optimise conversion rates and champion educational strategies and training programmes that promote organ donation to health care professionals across each hospital group.

The Government’s commitment to increasing organ donation and transplantation rates is further underlined by the re-commissioning of a theatre in Beaumont Hospital for transplantation use at a cost of €1.2m. Beaumont Hospital has completed the recruitment of nurses for this facility and these nurses are now being trained to take on the specialised work involved. The theatre will be in use for kidney transplants from May 2014 and I expect the rate of transplants will increase incrementally over subsequent months.

The National Renal Transplant Programme at Beaumont progresses the ‘work-up’ (clinical assessment and a range of diagnostic procedures) of donors and recipients on the live donor programme in an organised way to facilitate the smooth running of the overall service. Preparing patients and their donors too far in advance would render some of the clinical assessments and diagnostics invalid, thus requiring some repeat procedures. The management of this process involves the holding back of some donors and recipients so that they will not be worked up too far in advance of their procedure.

Already 10 living donor transplants have been completed in 2014 and I am confident, with the new theatre coming on stream in May, that the 2013 record will be exceeded this year.