Patients from outside the eastern region with motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and other serious neurological disorders are being discriminated against, a meeting on outcomes in the health service has been told.
A study carried out by specialists at the national neuroscience centre at Beaumont Hospital found that patients from the Eastern Regional Health Authority area were twice as likely to be admitted to the hospital for neurological care compared to similar patients from outside the area who did not have access to services in their own region.
The 2003 study found that two-thirds of patients waiting more than six months for a bed at the hospital were from outside the greater Dublin area.
It also noted there was no difference in waiting times between public and private patients admitted to the neurological unit. More than 500,000 people in the Republic suffer from a neurological disability.
Dr Orla Hardiman, the director of neurology at Beaumont Hospital and consultant neurologist at the hospital told the meeting in Dublin organised by the Neurological Alliance of Ireland that the findings reinforced a belief that patients who lived close to a regional centre were better able to have access to specialist care.
"Such care is not available to those living in areas that are geographically remote," she told The Irish Times.
Dr Hardiman said there was a need to refocus the debate on healthcare resources away from the current emphasis on accident and emergency (A&E) services.
"It is generally accepted that people who attend A&E are by definition more urgent than those who wait at home for admission to hospital. While this may be true for acute surgical conditions, it is not necessarily the case for non-surgical problems."
She told the meeting that among the consequences of a policy to give priority to accident and emergency admissions over planned (elective) admissions was a tendency for patients who would otherwise have to wait for an excessively long period for a bed to present to A&E in an attempt to gain admission more quickly.