Epilepsy expert warns on services to treat referrals

IN A further sign of pressure on frontline health services, the Republic's leading epilepsy specialist has indicated he will no longer be able to see patients referred by family doctors.

Warning that access to care for people with epilepsy and other neurological problems is "horrendous", Dr Norman Delanty, consultant neurologist and director of the epilepsy programme at Beaumont Hospital, told The Irish Times he had recently written to the hospital's chief executive advising him of the need to curtail referrals.

Dr Delanty said he would have to confine referrals to his unit to other hospital specialists, a move that will exacerbate the two-year waiting list for assessment at the State's national neurology centre and severely limit access to expert care for patients.

Speaking after the launch of a plan to establish a €50 million privately funded, not-for-profit national centre for epilepsy in Dublin, Dr Delanty called on politicians to be honest with the public about the lack of neurological services.

"Another scandal is waiting to happen if the situation is not improved," he said.

There are 40,000 people with epilepsy in the Republic. Of these, some 16,000 suffer from "drug-resistant" epilepsy that is difficult to control. These require a detailed in-patient assessment in order to decide whether treatment with brain surgery would benefit them. The new facility will also ensure rapid access to multidisciplinary care for patients with learning disability and epilepsy.

Hanneke DeBoer, former president of the International Bureau for Epilepsy, said she was very surprised at the deficits in services in a high-income country like the Republic. "When I hear it can take years to get epilepsy surgery, I'm appalled," she said.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition, diagnosed when someone has recurrent seizures caused by excess electrical activity in the brain.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times