Monaghan A&E to reopen for emergencies

A HOSPITAL which could not accept patients arriving in ambulances for more than two years will resume admitting emergency cases today, but will not admit children.

The A&E service at Monaghan General Hospital has been off-call because of health sector cutbacks since July 2002. Yesterday, the Health Service Executive (HSE) announced it would go back on 24-hour call for adult medical emergencies, but not surgical ones, from 12 noon today. This means adults requiring immediate surgery, children requiring any kind of emergency treatment, or urgent maternity cases will have to travel to Cavan or Drogheda, as is currently the case.

There was immediate criticism of the HSE for not going further and restoring other services at the hospital. It was an “important but insufficient step”, said local TD and Sinn Féin health spokesman, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.

“Only a complete restoration of all services removed from Monaghan General Hospital and a renewed and demonstrated commitment to the development of these services will meet the needs and address the fears of the people,” he said.

Campaigners have been fighting for almost three years to have services restored at Monaghan General following health board cutbacks. Several deaths have been blamed on the absence of key services at the hospital in that period.

Bernie McCullagh, aged 72, died on October 26 while being taken by ambulance to Cavan General Hospital. He had suffered a heart attack in his home, just a few hundred yards from Monaghan General, but the hospital could not admit him because the A&E service was off-call.

More recently, in December, another local man who fell ill just minutes from the hospital died after being taken to Cavan. The 55-year-old, who also suffered a heart attack, died after going into cardiac arrest at Cavan.

Two years previously, Denise Livingstone was turned away from Monaghan despite being in advanced labour. Her baby, Bronagh, died in an ambulance after being born en route to Cavan.

Ambulance crews have now been advised that they can bring adults with urgent medical conditions to Monaghan General. But surgery and maternity cases will continue to be transferred to Cavan or Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

“The proportion of emergency admissions through any hospital’s A&E is roughly three-quarters medicine; hence, even though Monaghan General Hospital is not going back on call for surgery, the hospital will be able to deal with the majority of cases that would have presented pre-July 2002,” a HSE statement said.