A Dublin hospital has confirmed it will be ready to carry out the first lung transplant operation in the State from April 1st.
The deputy chief executive of the Mater Hospital, Mr Brian Conlan, said yesterday the exact timing of the first transplant will depend on when a suitable donor organ becomes available.
"It is donor-dependent, but we will be on call from April 1st for the first transplant in our new unit," he said.
"Our new unit is just about ready to be commissioned. We will be putting regular patients through it first to ensure there are no problems before we expose a lung transplant to the unit," he said.
The unit was built in two phases at a cost of €4 million. It includes a pre-assessment unit, a high-dependency unit and an isolation unit. There are also plans for a third phase when a new theatre will also be built, but this is not a requirement for the first lung transplant to be carried out, he said.
He added that the first transplant will be of a single lung. Then the unit hopes to progress to doing heart-lung transplants.