Doctors at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital have written to patients saying they have suspended a living kidney transplant programme just six months after it began.
Patients have been told the move is because of a lack of resources.
Last night the Health Service Executive (HSE) said it was committed to the programme and denied it had been suspended.
However, in a letter to a 22-year-old Dublin woman who was about to donate one of her kidneys to her brother, a consultant transplant surgeon at Beaumont, Dilly Little, wrote: "It is with great regret that I wish to inform you that we, as clinicians, have decided to suspend the living related transplant programme.
"We have been promised resources and funding to set up this programme which will include extra theatre facilities, beds, outpatient facilities and appointment of new staff. Unfortunately, despite repeated efforts this has not yet come to pass and so we do not feel that we can progress with this programme safely at the moment".
She expressed her hope that the suspension of the service would be just temporary.
"I would certainly hope that the programme will be up and running fully as absolutely soon as possible and we continue to press the HSE and the hospital administration to provide us with the wherewithal to do this," the letter added.
The recipient of the letter, Lorna Martin, was willing to donate a kidney to her brother Philip (20), an apprentice carpenter, who is on dialysis. Their mother, Lorraine, who lives in Swords, Co Dublin, said Philip was born with a condition which left him requiring a kidney transplant at age four.
He had a second transplant at 15 and was told, when one of his kidneys started to fail again last year, that his best hope was to get a transplant from a living donor.
His mother and two sisters were tested and Lorna was a perfect match. It was on the day Lorna telephoned to see if her kidney would match her brother's requirements that she learned the programme was suspended.
"I'm horrified. I think it's obscene that we as a family can be treated like that," Lorna's mother said last night.
Mark Murphy, chief executive of the Irish Kidney Association, said he understood the programme had been suspended as a result of a row over the type of contract which would be offered to a new transplant surgeon about to be recruited to the hospital.
But he said a locum transplant surgeon was still in place in the hospital pending the appointment of the new consultant, so he couldn't understand why the programme was being suspended. "This is not a reason to stop a programme . . . patients are being used as negotiating tools," he said.
In its statement the HSE said the programme had not been suspended. "Funding was provided to Beaumont Hospital in 2006 to initiate this programme and additional funding is available this year to support the further roll out of this programme," it said.
"The HSE and the hospital are committed to ensuring that 15 transplants will be completed by the end this year," it added.
A spokesman for Beaumont said last night the hospital would work to ensure the programme was delivered. "We will be in touch with patients in the very near future with a view to updating them on the programme," a spokesman said.
The living transplant programme began last year with eight transplants successfully undertaken to date.