The former chairwoman of the Southern Health Board, Dr Catherine Molloy, has warned that Munster hospitals might set up their own independent blood testing facility if the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) does not reverse its decision to downgrade testing in Cork.
"The risk posed by the centralising of all blood testing in Dublin is sufficiently real to justify the setting up of an independent testing facility in Cork, operated by a partnership of public and private hospitals in Munster," she said.
Such an independent facility would continue to operate to the high standards practised in the Cork testing centre - the only one in the State to operate to ISO 9002 standards, she said. The issue was of such importance that it had united the medical community throughout the region with over 400 GPs backing 30 consultants who had called for the retention of the facility in Cork, she said. Dr Molloy said the decision of the BTSB to centralise blood testing in Dublin was "hugely disappointing" but she claimed that the board had failed to consult the medical users of the Cork centre properly when coming to its decision.
The board of the BTSB agreed unanimously to a single site for donation testing at its monthly meeting on Wednesday. The decision was made after consideration of a report by the BTSB's medical director, Dr William Murphy, and chief executive, Mr Martin Hynes.
"The decision was based on considerations of likely future developments in testing and international models of best practice as identified in the report. The board's strategic planning must now take into account the need to develop testing facilities requiring considerable investment of finance and expertise in order to meet future challenges," a statement from the board said.
It added that the concerns of the medical community had been "considered in detail". The Murphy and Hynes report stated that there had been "understandable concern" that the centre in Cork would be "fatally weakened" by the loss of the testing laboratories. There were fears expressed, the report said, that the local services would be run down, resulting in the poorer delivery of blood products and related services to the Munster region.
A BTSB spokeswoman said yesterday that there would be no redundancies as a result of the decision and no need for any staff to transfer to Dublin.