The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, has responded to reports that the Blood Transfusion Service Board centre in Cork is to be downgraded. The BTSB itself rejected reports that the transfer of testing to a central site would put lives in Cork at risk.
According to Mr Cowen yesterday, a consultative process is under way with staff and users of the BTSB service in Cork to bring them up to date on developments in blood transfusion medicine.
Responding to claims that the BTSB in Cork is to be downgraded, Mr Cowen said that the reorganisation of the BTSB was a matter for the BTSB but optimum patient care would remain a primary consideration.
"If anyone thinks that the blood transfusion service in Cork is going to be closed down - that is not the position. In fact, I have made a significant investment there of some hundreds of thousands of pounds to upgrade the existing centre in Cork.
"That was as a result of the insistence of the Irish Medicines Board, which is the regulatory body in these matters and I will be taking cognisance of any requirements the IMB put on us to ensure the Cork centre meets its requirements," he said.
Meanwhile, the BTSB strongly rejected claims by medical sources in Cork that the transfer of blood testing from Cork to a centralised BTSB laboratory in Dublin would result in lives being put at risk.
"The goal of the BTSB is to provide blood products which meet the highest international safety standards to hospitals on time and in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Patient care and donor care remain our priority," said the BTSB.
The BTSB said there was no evidence that having one national testing centre based in Dublin would affect live-saving operations in hospitals throughout the State, as claimed by medical sources in yesterday's Examiner newspaper.
"Hospitals in other parts of the country which do not have a regional testing centre are not putting their patients' lives at risk by being some distance from a blood centre," said the BSTB in a statement.
"Turnaround times for getting blood to hospitals is not at issue and there is no proposal to change this policy," said the BTSB in its statement, adding that a report was currently being prepared on the practical implications of developing a single site for donation testing.