The Southern Health Board has asked the Health Minister to intervene in a row with the Blood Transfusion Service over the location of blood testing facilities in Cork. 30 consultants and more than 400 GPs throughout Munster are opposing a decision by the Blood Transfusion Service to cease testing in Cork and centralise the operation in Dublin.
A decision by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service in July 1999 to cease blood testing at its centre in Cork and centralise all its testing in Dublin has been bitterly opposed by the medical sector in Munster as well as by politicians from the area. They have claimed that the absence of a second testing centre would be unsafe and would put patients at risk. The Blood Transfusion Service denies this, however.
The Service's decision was rejected by the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, which voted unanimously that testing facilities should be retained in Cork. But the Blood Transfusion Service re-affirmed its decision last November. This afternoon the BTS came under renewed pressure to retain blood testing in Cork when the Southern Health Board asked Micheál Martin to intervene. He will meet a delegation from the board before the end of the month.
