A leading international healthcare company has been awarded a Health Service Executive contract to provide dialysis services in Limerick despite failing to establish a service in Kilkenny one year after winning a similar tender.
Last summer the HSE tendered for additional dialysis services needed by chronically ill kidney disease patients in the southeast. The German-owned Fresenius Medical Care company won the contract to establish a clinic in Kilkenny. This was scheduled to open this month.
However, the firm has failed even to secure planning permission. Two applications were rejected and yesterday a spokeswoman for Kilkenny Borough Council said the latest application, submitted on July 5th, had been ruled invalid. Fresenius's Dublin office did not respond to a request for comment.
Mark Murphy, chief executive of the Irish Kidney Association, said he presumed the HSE would now have to arrange a new tender for the service.
However, The Irish Times has learned that Fresenius has nonetheless been awarded a new contract by the HSE to provide extra dialysis services in the midwest.
Michael Walsh of the HSE West said a contract was awarded last week but he did not know the name of the company. He said the existing facility at Limerick's regional hospital in Dooradoyle was unable to cope.
Fiachra Ó Céilleachair, a HSE spokesman in Kilkenny, said discussions were "ongoing" with Fresenius. He would not comment on when the company would be judged to have not delivered on its Kilkenny contract.
The company has spent an estimated €500,000 adapting a commercial building in Kilkenny city centre for use as a clinic.
The HSE has awarded an interim contract to Kilkenny's Wellstone Clinic, an existing purpose-built dialysis clinic which was an unsuccessful bidder for the permanent contract.