Transplant programme patients left guessing

Patients needing a pancreas transplant say they are none the wiser about their situation after Beaumont Hospital in Dublin issued a statement on the future of the country’s pancreas transplant programme.

Beaumont issued the statement “to clarify a number of issues” just before the patients delivered a petition signed by 15,000 people to the hospital urging it not to abandon them.

One of the patients, Dublin teacher Rachel O’Hora, 32, said the hospital had offered her a clinical appointment shortly after her radio interview yesterday. Ms O’Hora, who needs a kidney and pancreas transplant, said the patients wanted a guarantee that the pancreatic programme would start within the promised timeframe.