Ban leaves epilepsy units closed as 200 wait on list

Two specialised units crucial to assessing the suitability of epilepsy patients for surgery remain closed due to the ban on staff recruitment, leaving more than 200 people on a waiting list.

This is despite the fact that the units are a central part of the HSE’s draft National Epilepsy Care Programme, published last March.

The two epilepsy monitoring units (EMUs) at Cork University Hospital and Beaumont Hospital in Dublin are supposed to provide an environment to record and study epileptic seizures with a view to:

* Identifying patients who may be suitable for surgery

* Definitively diagnosing or excluding epilepsy in those with seizure-like events

* Observing patients admitted with seizures in a safe environment

* Providing an environment where people with epilepsy can be educated and counselled.

However, neither EMU is up and running, leaving patients with highly complex epilepsy in limbo as to whether they are suitable for surgery or not.

Surgery can involve implanting a device that helps control seizures where medication is not working.

In the HSE plan, Beaumont, which had a two-bed EMU, was to increase its capacity to four beds, while CUH was to open two.

A spokesperson for Beaumont said capital works at the unit were complete and staffing needs identified, but the hospital did not have permission “at this time” to recruit. The unit remains closed. Beaumont Hospital was to be the National Epilepsy Centre under the HSE’s own plans, but that has not happened because the EMU remains closed.

In relation to CUH, a spokesman for HSE South said it had recently refurbished a section of a closed ward to develop a dedicated four-bed EMU and were “endeavouring to recruit the relevant staff”. It was expected the facility will open some time this year, he said.

Dr Brian Sweeney, consultant neurologist at CUH, said he understood the staff budget for the Cork unit had been cleared and that the hope was it would greatly improve services for those with drug-resistant epilepsy.

“Recording of seizures is a vital part of the assessment of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy — it allows us to localise the exact site where the seizures originate in the brain,” he said.

Mike Glynn, chief executive of the Irish Epilepsy Association Brainwave, said that, despite a spend of €900,000 upgrading the units, they remained closed.

“It seems entirely illogical that the HSE could sanction the redevelopment of the monitoring units, then decline to staff them so that they can be made operational,” he said. “Now we have neither the original two beds nor any of the four new monitoring beds. We now have no functioning beds in the country at all.

“We are highly concerned that waiting lists continue to grow, with between 200 and 250 people now awaiting admission for monitoring and no opening or reopening date yet agreed.”