Brain surgery service to extend to Cork

BRAIN haemorrhage patients from the south of the country will no longer be forced to travel to Dublin or Belfast as a long-awaited, life-saving treatment will be available in Cork from next month.

Doctors say up to 30 patients a year, and their families, have been forced to endure delays of up to two weeks as they waited for beds to become available in the North or Dub-lin for endovascular coiling — a new keyhole technique used to treat subarachnoid haemorrhages, bleeds in between the brain and the tissue that covers it.

Cork University Hospital general manager Tony McNamara said about 10 patients a year were sent to Beaumont from CUH.