Locals to fund hospital report
The Health Services Action Group (HSAG) said the report on Nenagh General Hospital was even "more necessary in light of the latest death at Monaghan General Hospital" - a death which is being directly linked to the downgrading of the hospital.
The HSAG was formed in the aftermath of the publication of the Hanly report which recommended the centralisation of specialist services at regional centres and the abolition of round-the-clock emergency services in local hospitals.
Its representatives in Tipperary have hired a project management group to draft the report on how Nenagh General Hospital should be resourced into the future. Consultants, GPs, nurses and ambulance drivers have all agreed to work on the study.
Senator Kathleen O'Meara of the HSAG said: "There will be Patrick Walshes all over the country if the Department of Health continues with its plan to reform hospitals by centralising A&E services.
"We are seeking to work in partnership with the Health Service Executive. We want to create a viable model that responds to the needs of the community. We don't want brain surgery here but we want the round-the-clock services that a community needs. An A&E is nothing unless it is 24 hour and unless it has a surgical role," the Labour senator said.
"There is a feeling around Nenagh, and in regional centres all around the country, that patients no longer have any input into the running of the health services since the health boards were disbanded. People working within the health services say they have no idea who is making decisions."
Dublin-based project manager Lorna Kiely has been employed to draft the report which is due to be finished before Christmas.
The Nenagh General Hospital report will cost up to €50,000 and it is expected that the money will be raised through local fundraising.
Monaghan General was starved of resources, like many other smaller centres, in the 1980s and then catch-up investment resumed in the 1990s.
However, in February 2001, maternity services were stopped and a year later, it was announced that the hospital was not 'on call' for medical emergencies. This meant if you had a heart attack at 7pm, you had to travel 30 miles to Cavan General Hospital for care.
Locals have complained that a 30-mile journey is not acceptable in emergencies but Cavan has been beset by its own internal problems. Two of its surgeons were suspended due to an ongoing personal dispute and it couldn't fill the positions temporarily. Scathing reports on the surgical department then led to the surgical unit temporarily losing its training status for junior doctors.
An on-call emergency service was resumed in January - but for medical emergencies only and not for surgery. Five junior doctors specialising in anaesthesia were hired. But, it remains that if you need an emergency operation after 5pm and before 8am, you face a journey to Drogheda or Cavan. The Health Service Executive (HSE) say three-quarters of emergencies arriving at A&E in Monaghan are medical cases.
Yes. Patrick Walsh came into the hospital after 5pm. He needed surgery to stop an ulcer bleeding but no surgical bed could be found for him at Monaghan and there appeared to be no intensive care beds available at Cavan, Drogheda or Beaumont.
He was pumped with up to five litres of blood at the hospital but it was surgery that he needed and he died a day after admission.
The Monaghan Hospital Community Alliance estimates that 16 people, including the newborn baby, Bronagh Livingstone, have died because of the lack of 24-hour A&E services. The Taoiseach, who heard of Mr Walsh's death while on a trip to Monaghan last week, was read the list by their chairman, Peadar McMahon. The alliance has rock-solid support in the area and Paudge Connolly was elected to the Dáil three years ago on a hospital action ticket.
Furthermore, Cavan General say that they can't cope with the overflow from Monaghan. Last month, surgeons working in Cavan wrote to the HSE appealing for the resumption of a 24-hour surgical emergency service in Monaghan as they say they cannot cope with the numbers and there are "unprecedented numbers" on trollies. All consultants at Cavan have also written and expressed their professional disquiet at the present situation.
Government policy on hospital development is still being dictated by the Hanly report. Hanly recommended centralising specialist care at larger regional hospitals which would operate within a network of smaller hospitals. It had suggested 10 networks but now this figure seems to be shrinking to four.
Monaghan General Hospital is being held up by many anti-Hanly groups as the 'doomsday scenario' that will engulf the whole country if the controversial Department of Health plan is brought into being everywhere. Such a view is open to argument. Hanly, if you remember, is the report that led one former Tipperary-based minister to break ranks with his Cabinet colleagues as he feared its recommendations would lead to the downgrading of smaller hospitals, like Nenagh General in his backyard.
She has maintained that it is an issue for the HSE but yesterday said in the Dáil that she believed an intensive care bed was available in Cavan in the hours after Mr Walsh was admitted to Monaghan.
Meanwhile, when HSE headquarters were contacted yesterday, they said it was an issue for the North Eastern Area who subsequently said they could not answer questions on the absence of a 24-hour emergency service pending the outcome of an investigation into the Patrick Walsh death.
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