70 patients wait more than year for kidney transplant

Seventy patients are waiting more than a year for a live kidney donor transplant, a situation described as “agonising mental torture” by one such patient.

According to the Health Service Executive, the waiting time for live related kidney transplantation at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin has increased to 14 months due to demands on the service.

The hospital had set a target of three to six months from the time of the initial test to the transplant.

The issue was raised in a Dáil question by Socialist Party TD Clare Daly to the Minister of Health after mother-of-one Ann Foley from Newmarket, Co Cork, became concerned at the length of time she and her cousin were waiting.

Ms Foley, 35, who has an 11-year-old daughter, counts herself lucky because she is not on dialysis.

“I am unsure as to what state the other 69 patients’ physical health is in, but 14 months is agonising mental torture, especially when you know there is a viable kidney waiting for you. Your life is effectively put on hold. I cannot begin to tell you what it feels like, knowing that you have to wait for your operation, most probably because of cutbacks.”

Ms Foley, who abandoned a career in nursing in 1999 after developing kidney failure, said she was happy with her medical care, both at Cork University Hospital and Beaumont, but felt HSE was failing patients like her.

Her cousin, who has been given the green light for the procedure, was first tested in Feb 2011.

“We were told that from the initial test, it takes up to thee to six months before the transplant.” said Ms Foley, who completed a masters’ degree in industrial relations at University College Cork last November.

HSE North Dublin area manager Anne Marie Hoey, who wrote to Ms Daly, said there was an urgent need to expand the live related kidney transplantation programme and to provide additional accommodation for the deceased kidney transplant programme.

Ms Hoey said a target of 100 live donor transplants annually over the next couple of years had been proposed in addition to the maintenance and development of deceased donor transplant activity.

Chief executive of the Irish Kidney Association Mark Murphy said he understood the frustrations felt by patients. But, he said, it must be realised that there were more kidney transplantations being undertaken than ever before.