Report says heart operations regularly cancelled at Crumlin

MORE THAN two heart operations for seriously ill children were cancelled every month this year at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin, a report has revealed.

The Eastern Regional Health Authority has carried out an investigation into the events surrounding the death of two-year-old Roisin Ruddle, who died in her mother’s arms after her surgery was postponed due to the lack of hospital staff.

Róisín, from Kilmacow, Kilfinny, Adare, Co Limerick, died on July 1, just hours after she was discharged from the hospital.

Yesterday the Labour Party asked how many more babies would die before Health Minister Micheál Martin realised that Government cutbacks were resulting in the cancellation of crucial heart operations.

The party’s deputy spokesperson on health, Senator Kathleen O’Meara, said the minister was well aware that Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin had been skating on thin ice in regard to the care of its patients long before the little girl’s death.

The hospital wrote to the minister in May explaining why another child’s heart surgery was cancelled after her case was highlighted in the media.The letter warned him that Government cutbacks was putting their high dependency cardiac unit under severe pressure.

A copy of this letter, highlighted by the Sunday Tribune yesterday, is contained in the Eastern Regional Health Authority’s report into Roisin’s death.

The letter, written by Moira McQuaid, the hospital’s acting chief executive, said Government funding meant that five additional fully equipped intensive care unit beds could not be used by the hospital.

“Minister Martin was warned about the crisis at the hospital. I would ask how many more Róisín Ruddles have to die before he does something about it,” said Ms O’Meara.

Fine Gael’s Dan Neville said the minister would have known that the issue was bigger than just a shortage of intensive care nurses more than a month before Róisín died.

“We are talking about the top children’s hospital in the country that is being frustrated from doing its work properly because of cutbacks,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said problems at the hospital were caused by a lack of staff, not funding. Money had been given to Crumlin to hire intensive care nurses in 2001 but these had not been recruited, he stressed.

Dympna Donnelly of Heart Children Ireland, a lobby group which represents parents of children with congenital heart defects, said her six-year-old son Lorcan was due to have vital heart surgery carried out at the hospital later this month.

“There were three emergency admissions one day last week that would have resulted in elective surgery being cancelled. It is a desperately stressful situation for parents like me to be in.” She said Róisín’s death was something every parent like her feared.

As well as more nurses, the hospital needed two more heart specialists, said Ms Donnelly. The hospital would also benefit hugely from having its own MRI scan that could avoid invasive surgery during initial investigations.

Meanwhile, the three-member review panel conducting an independent investigation into events surrounding Róisín’s death will meet this week. Their report is expected towards the end of this month.