asked the Minister for Health if he intends to provide highly specialised regional and national units; and, if so, the areas, for which purposes and when.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Specialised Hospital Units.
41.
The development of acute general hospital services throughout the country provides for specialties at three levels.
On the first level, community specialties such as general medicine, general surgery, obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics will be provided in general hospitals to cater for the immediate catchment area of the hospital except in the case of Dublin and to a certain extent in Cork where there are specialised maternity and paediatric hospitals.
On the second level, regional specialties such as orthopaedics, ENT, ophthalmology and urology will be provided in a number of the larger hospitals at centres such as Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Sligo.
These are specialties which either because of the specialised nature of the work or the size of the units required would not warrant the provision of units in each general hospital.
On the third level, higher or national specialties will be provided mainly in Dublin and Cork. These are specialties of a highly specialised nature, for example, cardiac surgery, neuro-surgery nephrology, neurology, which because of the expertise and equipment required and the demand for the servvices, can be provided only in a very limited number of centres.