For several years, a bus organised by Kerry and Cork independent TDs has been heading to the North once or twice a month, bringing patients from those counties to get cataract and hip operations in Belfast or Derry, procedures which are paid for — or least partly paid for — out of a cross-border healthcare fund.
In Cork’s Victoria/South Infirmary University Hospital last year, a theatre opened to carry out cataract operations, and over 1,800 procedures were carried out there during 2024, a number which is expected to be equalled this year.
HSE South West regional executive officer Andy Phillips said: “I would want people needing an operation to have that as close to their home as possible, so within Cork or Kerry and at a hospital that’s close to them, that…