A PROGRAMME designed to prevent blindness in people with diabetes has been scrapped for two years running because of budget deficits in the Health Service Executive (HSE), it has emerged.
The first stage of a national screening programme to detect retinopathy, a serious eye condition caused by diabetes, was approved in 2007 for patients in the HSE West region.
However, the €750,000 funding instead went to balance last year's budget deficit. A similar sum dedicated to the retinopathy scheme this year has now been used to plug budget shortfalls.
Speaking in advance of a major conference on integrated diabetic care organised by Croí, the West of Ireland Cardiology Foundation and the HSE, which takes place in Galway, Dr Seán Dineen, consultant endocrinologist at University Hospital Galway, said he was concerned at the failure to implement the programme.
"This issue is at the heart of the Diabetes Advisory Group model, which was set up by the chief executive of the HSE to advise him on service needs."
Dr Dineen said a pilot programme run in the northwest has proven the effectiveness of the screening programme and was ready to be extended to five other centres if the funding was restarted. The screening service uses a mobile van which visits GP surgeries on an annual basis.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said: "In 2007 the HSE West Diabetes Services Advisory Group submitted a Business Case for the development of a population - based Retinal Screening Programme for the HSE West Area… HSE West is the area which will roll out the first phase of what will be a National Diabetic Retinal Screening Programme".