The loss of vasectomy services for men with a medical card in Leitrim will deny them equal access to family planning supports.
That's the argument from Dr John O'Keefe, a vasectomy expert following a HSE decision to cut back community family planning funding for areas including Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan and Monaghan.
According to the medical professional, over 10,000 of the procedures are completed nationally every year, with the service available for free for medical card holders through GPs practices.
Under plans set to begin in August, GPs will now have to refer patients to a hospital offering the procedure, which rules out the majority of hospitals in the Shannonside region.
Dr O'Keefe argues that hospitals cannot take the burden of elective vasectomys and should not have to when they had been effectively offered in a community setting.
Speaking to the Joe Finnegan Show today, the Vasectomy Expert says the procedure is one of the most safe and effective methods of family planning:
'Each community care area has its own budget and out of the seven community care areas, four have decided they will fund vasectomy services.
So if your in Portlaoise or in the South of Dublin with a medical card, yes you can get a vasectomy done because it comes from their budget.
But three of the health areas decided they are going to cut vasectomies out of their budgets.
It's an incredibly effective form of family planning and it's also the only method of family planning that has zero side effects for a woman, no whats so ever.
If a woman's partner has a vasectomy, then the woman is at no health risk from the contraceptive.'
