Some 40 parents and children yesterday picketed Cork University Hospital (CUH), calling for an urgent improvement in services for children with diabetes who are having to wait over eight months for an appointment due to a shortage of specialist staff.
Charlotte Pearson, chairwoman of the Cork Parents Support Group of the Diabetes Federation, said the services offered at CUH were unable to cater for the needs of the 220 or so children with Type 1 diabetes in Cork city and county.
"We have one part-time nurse who is fully qualified and another part-time nurse who isn't fully qualified, and the consultant is a paediatrician with a special interest in diabetes. They're all excellent but they just aren't available enough to us," she said. "We need a children's endocrinologist exclusively for us and we need a dietician - we're sharing the dietician with six other consultants and ideally we need three specialist diabetes nurses. The people we have are doing their best but it isn't a proper service."
Ms Pearson said staffing shortages were leading to delays, in some cases of eight months or more, before children got appointments at CUH. The recommended waiting time for children with Type 1 diabetes is three months.
Cork North Central Labour TD Kathleen Lynch supported the parents' call and said the delays left the children vulnerable to major health complications associated with their volatile conditions.
"If this condition is not properly managed, complications such as blindness, ulcerations of the limbs and subsequent amputation, kidney failure and chronic heart disease can result. This is not the future that these parents envisage for their children," she said.
Ms Lynch later raised the matter with Minister for Health Mary Harney in the Dáil, pointing out that discussions between the parents support group and the Health Service Executive (HSE) had been ongoing for the past 18 months.
Ms Harney said a full-time nurse specialist would start on November 12th but was unable to say whether CUH would qualify for funding for an improved children's diabetes service from the extra €1 billion being allocated to the health service next year.
