by Louise Doyle

ALMOST €900,000 has been spent on outsourcing additional demand for renal dialysis for patients of Letterkenny University Hospital to hospitals in the north.

That’s according to figures issued to Deputy Pádraig MacLochlainn (SF) through a Parliamentary Question he submitted on behalf of his party colleague, Cllr Gerry McMonagle.

The figure of €826,616, seen by this newspaper, is the cost of renal services provided by the Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) for LUH patients from April 2020 to March 2025.

Deputy MacLochlainn sought the breakdown of figures, given that the renal dialysis unit in LUH is running at maximum capacity for a considerable amount of time.

His parliamentary question reads: “To ask the Minister for Health to confirm, in view of the fact that the renal dialysis unit in Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) is running at maximum capacity for a long time, the cost of out sourcing additional demand for dialysis to the NHS hospitals in the north of Ireland (inclusive of both transport and dialysis costs) in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 for patients from Donegal who should be treated in LUH”.

The figures show the largest amount in outsourcing spend was in April 2020 to March 2021 (€323, 568).

April 2021 to March 2022 saw the second largest outsourcing spend, at €219, 560.

The spend dropped to €89,434 between April 2022 to March 2023, and even further to €73,780 between April 2023 to March 2024.

However, outsourcing spend significantly rose again by almost double from April 2024 to March 2025, when costs of renal services provided by WHSCT for LUH patients was €120, 274.