The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, has insisted that children with leukaemia will continue to be treated at a new unit in Tallaght Hospital despite parents' fears that the unit will be closed.
Parents of children being treated at the hospital's new haematology unit have said they will oppose a plan to centralise assessment and referral services in Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. The decision to centralise assessment was announced last week.
The parents say this will inevitably lead to the rundown of the new haematology unit at Tallaght which they regard very highly. They met Mr Cowen yesterday but refused to accept assurances from him that the Tallaght unit would remain open.
Mr Cowen said: "There is no question, nor was any proposal put to me, of transferring the unit at Tallaght Hospital to Crumlin. I would also like to stress that, contrary to some completely inaccurate media reports, I have no intention of closing the unit at Tallaght. No proposal in this regard was ever made to me, nor have I ever considered this step. It simply does not arise."
He said he sympathised with and understood the parents' concerns, but added that there would be "no transfer of resources, either of staff or equipment from Tallaght to Crumlin". The decision to centralise assessment at Crumlin was made on foot of a recommendation from the National Cancer Forum, but it would not adversely affect the services being provided for children at Tallaght, he said.
However, the newly-formed organisation CHILD (Children's Hospital on Leukaemia Drive) said yesterday that Mr Cowen was acting on "bad advice". They insisted the decision that newly-diagnosed children would first be referred to Crumlin would lead to the shutting down of the Tallaght unit.
"We feel that the Minister is badly briefed", the chairwoman of CHILD, Ms Elizabeth Pearson Evans, said after meeting the Minister. "He does not understand the ramifications of his decisions and has not looked at all the international evidence presented to him."