Utter frustration at the lack of a dedicated ward for cancer patients at Cork's University Hospital has resulted in one of the hospital's two cancer specialists handing in his notice.
After campaigning unsuccessfully for better facilities at the hospital for four years, Dr Oscar Breathnach has decided he cannot take any more. He leaves the hospital in August.
The other consultant oncologist at the hospital, Dr Séamus O'Reilly, said yesterday that cancer patients were scattered throughout the hospital. This was not best practice, he said.
He pointed out that a new day procedures unit in the hospital, which was built but lying idle, could provide a solution if money was sanctioned to open it.
Dr Breathnach is away this week and could not be contacted yesterday but Dr O'Reilly said he had stated the reason for his resignation in an e-mail to other consultant staff in the hospital.
He is not the first doctor to resign in frustration at the lack of progress in the provision of better facilities for patients. In January, two consultants at the Wexford General Hospital resigned from the hospital's management team in protest at the failure to address overcrowding at the A&E unit and the failure by the Department of Health to honour a promise to provide the hospital with 19 extra beds.
Last summer at University College Hospital Galway, consultant surgeon Mr Michael Gilbride, resigned three months after taking up his post because the Western Health Board and hospital management were unable to provide him with the minimum number of operating theatre sessions required to treat his patients.
Yesterday the Health Service Executive (HSE) claimed it was working to try and provide a specific unit for cancer patients at Cork University Hospital.
"This will be possible later this year when a new day unit in the hospital has been commissioned.
"The HSE is awaiting a detailed analysis of the additional revenue costs of such a facility. It is committed to having a dedicated number of beds in place and to improving the oncology services," it said in a statement.
However, it seems this development will be too late for Dr Breathnach. He has applied for and succeeded in getting another post. The HSE is now trying to find a locum to replace him.
Meanwhile, Dr O'Reilly also urged the HSE to appoint more consultant oncology staff to the southern region.
He said he and Dr Breathnach served a population of 500,000 people and saw more than 800 new cancer patients every year across Cork and Kerry.
"In the oncology day ward in Tralee alone, 3,000 patient visits are being made per annum," he said. The region needed four consultant oncologists rather than two, he stressed.
Cork Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen said he was horrified at what he claimed was a crisis developing in the healthcare service in Cork. He said his fear was that Dr Breathnach's departure would lead to waiting lists for cancer patients at Cork University Hospital.
Fine Gael is to demand action from Health Minister Mary Harney in the Dáil today