PARENTS IN LIMERICK with children with type 1 diabetes fear the quality of service will drop with the loss of the full time locum consultant at University Hospital Limerick.
Last year, the part-time consultant endocrinologist went on leave and the position was advertised, however it did not attract any candidates.
“This meant that a full-time locum consultant was hired under a year contract, but that is now ending,” said Dr Anna Clarke from Diabetes Ireland.
Diabetes services
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Dr Clarke said that since there has been a full time consultant dedicated purely to diabetes care, the children’s diabetes services in the hospital has dramatically improved.
“Now that the locum posting is over, they are reverting back to the 0.2 consultancy, which is not a full time post. Over 250 children with type 1 diabetes, who effectively had increased the medical support fivefold for the year, will now all have to be seen in one day, when there should really be at least two consultants looking after that number of chidlren” she explained
“At minimum, Limerick and Galway need a part time post in each hospital to support this. Cutting the Limerick Service medical support to a fifth will put children’s health at risk on a daily basis and we end up spending more on inpatient treatment and long term complications. Our children deserve better,” said Dr Clarke.
She added that they simply “cannot accept” the new measures stating that care is not maintained it will cause difficulties for the children later in life which will incur more costs to the health service.
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