Renal care: Beaumont Hospital in Dublin is considering the establishment of the Republic's first programme for transplanting kidneys to patients from living donors.
A spokesman for the hospital confirmed to The Irish Times last night that proposals to establish the programme had been put forward by doctors at the hospital to management but that it was still at very early stages.
It is understood that the hospital is likely to establish an internal committee to examine all the issues - including potential legal and ethical considerations - surrounding the proposals for the transplant programme.
The committee is also likely to look at the resource implications of the development of such a programme for the hospital.
The proposals, following consideration by the committee, would later be referred to the governing board of the hospital for final approval.
The medical, ethical and legal issues involved in living donor transplantation were considered at an international conference, organised by the hospital to mark 40 years of renal transplantation in Ireland, and held in the Royal College of Surgeons last April.
Speaking at the conference, consultant nephrologist and transplant physician to Beaumont Hospital, Dr Peter Conlon, said that the discussion was timely because of the increasing pressures on dialysis services throughout Ireland.
He said that over the past decade in Ireland there had been about 135 kidney transplants carried out each year on average. He said that these had predominantly, but not exclusively, involved cadaver donations.
Dr Conlon said that at the same time there were now more than 1,000 Irish patients receiving kidney dialysis.
"For many of these, obtaining a transplant can have a dramatic effect on their quality of life - for others it can literally be a matter of life or death."
He said that with people living longer as a result of medical advances and improved dialysis, pressure on renal services in hospitals continued to rise.
"Looking ahead we can see that there will be increased expectations with regard to transplantation and it is prudent that all interested parties take stock now and seek consensus on guidelines for both related and unrelated living donor renal transplants," Dr Conlon told the conference last April.
Following the conference at the Royal College of Surgeons, doctors involved in renal transplants at Beaumont put forward proposals for the living donor programme to a meeting of the hospital's Governance and Services Committee last July.
According to internal Beaumont board papers, it was agreed, following a presentation by the doctors, that the Governance and Services Committee would satisfy itself that the proper procedures were being put in place and that the matter would later be referred to the main governing board of the hospital.
If the proposals are accepted for the living donor renal transplantation scheme, the hospital is likely in the future to approach the Eastern Regional Health Authority for funding.
