The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, called for greater transparency in the provision of care in Cork for HIV and AIDS patients yesterday. This follows a report which shows a major lack of communication between local statutory and voluntary bodies.
According to the report, commissioned by HIV/AIDS Family Support, there is a major anomaly between the attitude of the Southern Health Board and that of St Patrick's Hospital towards providing hospice care for AIDS sufferers.
Mr John McCarthy, PRO for HIV/AIDS Family Support, said the group had been informed by St Patrick's Hospital - which runs Marymount Hospice - that it had no objections to opening its doors to patients who are living with HIV, but that it lacks the finance.
"On the other hand, we have been informed by the SHB that the finance is in place. We would like to have this anomaly resolved by negotiation as quickly as possible."
According to the Minister the report - which was carried out by Mr Paul Burgess and Ms Helen Duggan of the Social Policy Research Unit in UCC - clearly highlights the need for hospice care for HIV/AIDS sufferers in the SHB area.
"The report has clearly worrying conclusions. We need greater integration between the voluntary and statutory organisations - the lack of inter-agency co-operation is highlighted time and again in this report," he said.
Dr Tony O'Brien, consultant physician in palliative medicine at Marymount, said the hospice needed to develop structures to enable it to provide specialist palliative care for a wide range of patients, including AIDS sufferers.
The hospice would hope to cater for those suffering from cancer, severe cardio-vascular problems, severe respiratory problems and motor neurone disease, as well as AIDS sufferers, he said.
The Marymount unit currently has 24 beds. Allocating one or two beds specially for AIDS sufferers would run the risk of isolating them and stigmatising them, said Dr O'Brien.
He added that the unit has been in regular contact with the SHB for funding.
The SHB chief executive, Mr Sean Hurley, declined to comment on the report until he had read it in detail.
The report found that while over 33 per cent of GPs surveyed had provided care for HIV patients and over 90 per cent were willing to do so, there was "a palpable sense of anger and frustration in some of the GPs' responses on the issue of hospice care".