Beaumont Hospital accused of abandoning gravely ill patients

The former director of the national pancreas transplant programme has accused Beaumont Hospital of abandoning gravely ill patients on the waiting list.

David Hickey says the hospital and the HSE are taking an "unethical and callous" approach to patients on the waiting list by seeking to "wind up" the programme without telling them.

“I hate to see a pancreas programme that has been run well with minimal resources, with patients urgently needing transplants, being squashed because no one gives a damn.”

No pancreas transplants have been carried out in Ireland since Mr Hickey retired last December. The health service could find itself facing charges of corporate manslaughter if it failed to provide appropriate levels of care for seriously ill patients, he told The Irish Times.

Survival rate

The five-year survival rate of people with diabetes on dialysis, and who urgently need transplants, is just 20 per cent, he pointed out. Mr Hickey, who has carried out over 1,500 kidney and pancreas transplants, said he offered to stay on for two years, but this was rejected by the hospital.

It was “unconscionable” that no plan was made for seriously ill patients four months after he had retired. “My retirement date has been known for 30 years, and still nothing was done.”

Siting a national transplant programme in a regional hospital was a mistake, he said. He claimed the hospital was run by “people with clipboards who cared only about budgets”.

A spokesman for Beaumont Hospital said from next month pancreas transplants would be carried out in St Vincent’s Hospital. Under new arrangements for combined kidney and pancreas transplants, consultants from Beaumont will carry out the kidney transplants.

The statement did not say who would carry out the pancreas transplants.