The sole supplier of chemotherapy medicines to a number of Irish hospitals has said it is experiencing production problems and cannot supply to Ireland at the moment.
The company, Baxter, said it expects to resume production early next week.
RTÉ News understands hospitals are sourcing product from other suppliers in the UK for the present but the issue has caused delay and extra expense.
The company said in a statement: "Baxter is currently experiencing a temporary supply constraint of compounded chemotherapy products supplied to a number of public and private hospitals in Ireland.
"We are doing all we can to restore production capacity as quickly as possible and minimise the impact to patients.
"We are working with other Baxter compounding units in the UK to identify if any extra capacity can be utilised, advising hospitals to identify alternative supply arrangements and working diligently to revalidate equipment, which is necessary to resume production."
The company said it was committed to a resolution as soon as possible.
The Health Service Executive has said that around 10 hospitals and approximately 60 patients have been affected by the production problems.
Many of the larger hospitals make up many of the chemotherapy compounds themselves but a number of the smaller hospitals normally rely exclusively on Baxter.
They have been sourcing alternative supplies through the UK and from some of the larger hospitals.
The HSE is advising all patients receiving chemotherapy to attend appointments as scheduled.
RTÉ News understands this is not the first time that there has been a suspension of normal supply from Baxter since it became the only external supplier of chemotherapy compounds to Irish hospitals after it took over Fannin Compounding in 2015.
It is understood that the problem on this occasion relates to calibration of one or more machines used for producing the compounds.
