Consultants warn of chaos in hospitals

HOSPITAL consultants warned yesterday that only a major injection of cash and staff would prevent further chaos in the country’s health services.

The profession’s representative association said winter overcrowding in accident and emergency departments had already begun and the failure of the Government to live up to even limited promises of increased bed numbers was pushing hospitals to breaking point.

The warning spells difficult times ahead for Minister for Health Micheál Martin who at the weekend urged the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) to support the major reorganisation of the health service detailed in the Hanly Report to be published in a few weeks.

Mr Martin told the association’s annual conference in Limerick it had become “fashionable” to question the Government’s commitment to health reforms and he called on the consultants to establish a benchmark for other health service employees by throwing their weight behind his plans.

However, the minister also confirmed for the first time that his plans include scaling back services in smaller local hospitals in favour of massing specialist facilities in larger regional centres, and the consultants were quick to say they were unimpressed.

IHCA president Colm Quigley said that, while his members welcomed reform, the priority had to be resources, not reorganisation. “We want to see not just reform, but improvements. Most hospital consultants are crying out for more resources, more colleagues and more beds,” he said.

“The Hanly Report won’t actually address the capacity issue. Our problem in the hospital services is that we have a one litre bottle and we are trying to cram two litres into that bottle. Changing the shape of the bottle is not going to help.”

Mr Martin found himself on the right side of the consultants on the issue of patient safeguards, following the Dr Michael Neary womb removal scandal at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.

He said details of the new Medical Practitioners Act to include a mandatory Competence Assurance Scheme for the monitoring and scrutiny of consultants’ work would be published by the end of the year.

Mr Quigley said the Neary case had been a watershed for the profession and that public trust would have to be re-established and re-earned in its wake.