A Donegal TD gas called for the recruitment of a clinical paediatric diabetes nurse at Letterkenny General Hospital as a matter of urgency to facilitate the healthcare needs of around 143 children in the county.
Speaking on the matter raised in the Dáil with Minister Reilly during Topical Issues, Thomas Pringle highlighted the urgency of this issue: “As it stands there is currently no diabetes nurse covering paediatric care for these children in the county who have the Type 1 form of the condition, which in this day and age is ludicrous.
“These children can use an insulin pump to cut down on the number of daily injections they have to get, but the nearest centre of excellence for pump therapy is four hours away in Dublin. This is highly unsatisfactory for these children’s needs and a great burden on the families who are already struggling to manage their children’s condition.
“The recruitment of an Integrated Diabetes Clinical Nurse Specialist is being used to deal with both adults and children which is a far call from best practice and highly inappropriate considering the number of children in the region in need of this service. At the end of the day children should be able to get their insulin pump at Letterkenny and not have to make the trip to Dublin when it’s needed.
“The HSE Diabetes Expert Advisory Group recommends one Paediatric Diabetes Clinical Nurse Specialist per 100 children/adolescents with diabetes; we can see from this that we are well above this recommended ratio and this situation will worsen as occurrences of paediatric diabetes increase. It is therefore vital that we address this issue now before it is let get any worse
“I acknowledge that the Minister has agreed to meet with parents from Donegal and I welcome this, but it’s action not words that is needed and I’m calling on Minister Reilly to provide the clinical paediatric diabetes nurse that is so badly needed.
“In that regard I would like to thank the Donegal Parents Diabetes Support Group and Donegal branch of Diabetes Ireland for their continued work in highlighting this issue and I for one will keep pushing this issue until we get what our children with diabetes so badly need,” stated Pringle.
Tags:
