Beaumont Hospital is the national centre for delivering Ireland’s national cochlear implant programme, with surgical provision for patients under six years being carried out in the Children’s University Hospital Temple Street. A simultaneous bilateral cochlear implantation scheme for patients under six commenced in Temple Street in July 2014. The hospital had a two-year agreement (July 2014 - June 2016) in place with Beaumont Hospital for theatre access to facilitate an initiative on sequential cochlear implants treatments for previously unilateral implanted children under 6 years of age. In June 2016, Temple St completed its commitment to accommodate the treatment of all the under 6s children requiring sequential treatment – 210 in total.
In relation to the over 6s, this service is provided by Beaumont Hospital. While Temple Street is willing to have all paediatric cochlear implant services transferred from Beaumont, this needs to be done in a planned manner, and requires the development of the necessary infrastructure, including theatre capacity, to support the service transfer to Temple Street. Until such time as additional capacity is provided at Temple Street, the position is that service for older children continues to be under the remit of Beaumont Hospital, which has also experienced theatre capacity issues.
As the Deputy's question relates to a service matter, I have arranged for the question to be referred to the Health Service Executive for direct reply to the Deputy in relation to action underway to address the theatre capacity issues.
