The Blood Transfusion Service Board has decided to consolidate blood-testing nationally, the board told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.
Representatives of the board attended a meeting of the committee to reply to members' questions about the board's decision to centralise blood-testing services in Dublin, which will involve the discontinuation of blood-testing in Cork.
Dr William Murphy, medical director of the BTSB, told the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children that major changes were coming in the way blood transfusion services did their job. In particular, the number of patients who received transfusions would decrease.
In future there would be "more service and less product" from the blood transfusion service, which would bring a new vision for such a service. For example, tissue engineering of patients' own cells would replace extensive skin grafting in treating severe burns in the future. It was proposed to site tissue engineering in the Cork centre, he said.
Mr Batt O'Keeffe, chairman of the committee, said that prior to April 1998, when Mr Martin Hynes took over as chief executive of the BTSB, "all was rosy in the garden" with regard to the Cork centre. He asked what scientific evidence had come to light between then and November 1998 to suggest there should only be one centre.
Dr Pat Barker, chairwoman of the BTSB, said the board had been asked to examine best practice internationally. This conclusion was the result of that inquiry.
Mr O'Keeffe asked Dr Murphy why he had no difficulty with having two centres in 1997, but that had changed by 1999.
Dr Murphy replied that before Mr Hynes there was a "revolving door syndrome" among senior staff in the BTSB and he had had four CEOs in two years. He said that had the decision gone the other way and it was decided to site the centre in Cork, he would have had no difficulty with that.
Mr Alan Shatter, Fine Gael's spokesman on health, asked would there not be a practical advantage to having two sites. If something went wrong in one, it would be a fail-safe device to have another carrying out a similar function elsewhere.
"It's been suggested that the reason this is being done is to get revenge on Cork because Cork brought to public attention the appalling tragedy of the contamination of blood products," he said.
Mr John Dennehy (FF) asked was the regional director in Cork promoted after the discovery of the tragedy in the 1980s. "Is there a case being taken by that person in relation to the board?" he asked. "Is there any proposal to terminate the Hepatitis C unit in Cork?"