By Catherine Shanahan
Saturday, February 02, 2013
A young woman who lost all her teeth during epileptic seizures, and has undergone plastic surgery for facial injuries, has been refused funding for treatment abroad despite the fact that she cannot get it here.
Yvonne Brennan, 27, from Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, is one of more than 250 people waiting for assessment in one of the countrys two epilepsy monitoring units (EMUs), which remain closed.
The units, at Cork University Hospital (CUH) and Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, are crucial to understanding why people have epilepsy and how best it can be treated.
However neither is open. Beaumont was operating a two-bed unit but it closed for upgrading to a four-bed unit last June. It has remained closed. A second unit at CUH has yet to open. Close to 1m was invested between the two.
During the week, the HSE said it intended to open the Beaumont unit on a phased basis, beginning with two nurses instead of five. However, Prof Norman Delanty, director of the epilepsy programme at Beaumont, said this was "completely unsatisfactory".
He said a unit that was supposed to operate around the clock, seven days a week, in order to monitor seizures in patients, with a view to making a definitive diagnosis of epilepsy, or deciding which candidates are suitable for surgery, could not fulfil its function unless fully staffed.
"The whole thing is just bonkers," said the consultant neurologist, adding that it was a "waste of money" to open in the manner the HSE was proposing and an "absolute disaster" as far as patients were concerned. Many of these included people with an intellectual disability, he said, whose epilepsy was completely under-managed.
He said failure to open the units would add to growing waiting lists for the EMUs, more attendances at emergency departments for people with epilepsy, and a need to refer patients abroad for treatment. "This is something I dont want to have to do. Its professionally depressing."
See the article here:
Opening epilepsy unit on a phased basis ‘is bonkers’