By Róise Collins

THE Donegal Branch of Diabetes Ireland has welcomed the announcement of funding to recruit a new Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) for the adult diabetes service at Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH).

Chair of the Donegal Branch, Mr Paul Gillespie, welcomed the news, saying it was a “long time in coming.”

The group was also recently informed that a new Consultant Endocrinologist for Adult Diabetes Care is expected to begin work at LUH in early June.

“This is a significant step forward towards properly resourcing the service so that it can improve the level of care provided to the local diabetes community.

“We hope this will help provide access to more regular hospital appointments and more importantly see the service begin to provide access to insulin pump therapy for all adults with Type 1 diabetes in Donegal,” Mr Gillespie added.

He went on to explain that there is still a vacant Consultant Endocrinologist post at LUH, as well as a second ANP post in Adult Diabetes Care, both of which the branch believes are urgently needed.

They expect LUH to continue advocating for these additional positions.

“At our recent meeting with the Minister for Health, we emphasised that LUH had never received an ANP for the Adult diabetes care service since the 2019 roll out of ANP’s, and we believe that LUH should really have three Adult ANP’s in diabetes by now due to the large population of Type 1 Diabetes patients across Donegal.”

The group hopes to hear more from the Minister soon and to receive confirmation of funding for a second ANP, which is considered essential to support the arrival of the second Consultant Endocrinologist.

During the same meeting, they also raised concerns that a proposed paediatric diabetes centre of excellence for the North West, originally included in HSE model of care guidance over ten years ago, has still not been implemented.

“The lack of any psychology support for Type 1 diabetes which is a chronic life threatening condition and for their families is still to be resourced also,” added Mr Gillespie.

The recruitment news was confirmed during last week’s Regional Health Forum meeting.

Dermot Monaghan, Integrated Health Area Manager for Donegal, explained that a new national ANP funding stream became available in March.

“LUH has now been informed we will receive funding for one ANP Type 1 diabetes post as this was our number one priority. LUH will now proceed to recruit.”

He said recruitment is expected to take place within two to three months or six months at the latest.

Cllr Gerry McMonagle, who raised the question at Tuesday’s meeting, also welcomed the recruitment of the ANP.