Chronic pain patient is refused planned surgery

A sufferer from an illness which causes irreversible damage and severe pain claims he was turned away for vital surgery by a hospital administrator just two days before an operation.

Senator Marc MacSharry said yesterday the administrator admitted to his office she turned away the 27- year-old patient last week because he was “outside the catchment area” for St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, although doctors there had agreed to carry out the procedure.

Mr MacSharry, Fianna Fáil’s Seanad health spokes- man, said he was “shocked and outraged” at what happened. He said the patient, who lives in Co Sligo, could not sleep for three nights over the weekend because he was in such pain.