CUH epilepsy unit finally opens after two-year delay

After a delay of more than two years, a €500,000 unit for monitoring seizures in people with poorly controlled epilepsy has finally opened at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

The opening of the four-bed epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) will allow the vital process of evaluating the suitability of epilepsy patients for potentially curative surgery to begin.

Between 5% and 10% of patients return to normal following surgery.

Two previous HSE commitments to open the unit in 2013 and 2014 went unfilled, leaving more than 100 patients with highly complex epilepsy, and at risk of a fatal seizure, on a waiting list.

Now, however, the hospital has recruited sufficient nursing staff to allow the EMU operate around-the-clock, essential for effective monitoring of seizures. The EMU will also assist in making a definitive diagnosis — not all patients who suffer seizure-like events have epilepsy.

Dr Daniel Costello, consultant neurologist and clinical lead for the EMU at CUH, said the new unit will provide “numerous benefits to people with epilepsy, particularly those with severe epilepsy”. “Video-EEG monitoring [to measure the electrical activity of the brain] will greatly help to clarify a diagnosis in certain patients,” Dr Costello said.

Tony McNamara, CEO at CUH, said the hospital had recently appointed five staff nurses trained in the management of epilepsy patients, as well as a newly-appointed advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) with specialist training in epilepsy.

“These new staff will improve on the specialist care already provided by the existing neurology service at CUH,” Mr McNamara said.

Mike Glynn, CEO of Epilepsy Ireland, said they were “delighted the unit has finally opened”.

“It’s late, but at least it’s happening. We’ll be keeping an eye to make sure it continues to operate,” Mr Glynn said .

Consultant neurologist/epileptologist Colin Doherty, the doctor tasked with implementing the HSE’s national epilepsy programme, said the EMU would be “a huge boost for those with epilepsy in the south”.

Dr Doherty has said there is “unassailable evidence” that surgery for a small cohort of epilepsy patients is like a “Lazarus cure”.

The new unit will serve patients in Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford.

Fine Gael TD for Cork East David Stanton said the new unit would “significantly enhance the services that the hospital can offer to people with epilepsy in the region, particularly those with acutely unstable epilepsy”.