HSE must ‘decide’ solution to North-East’s A&E problem

THE chief executive of the Health Services Executive has said his organisation must find an effective and lasting solution to the A&E problems in the North-East which led to the death of 76-year-old man last week.

Professor Brendan Drumm said it “must sit down and determine issues in the North-East and decide what will provide the best quality of care in the region.”

At the annual general meeting of the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine in Cork yesterday, he refused to say if he intended ordering another study into the provision of emergency surgical services in the HSE, North Eastern Area.

Earlier this week, he said it was not practical to have round-the-clock emergency services at five hospitals that only serve 300,000 people.

Monaghan farmer Patrick Walsh bled to death at Monaghan General last Friday as he needed surgery on a perforated ulcer but doctors are not allowed complete emergency operations at the hospital after 5pm.

Under HSE protocol, patients in need of an after-hours emergency operation are to be sent to Cavan General or Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda but both hospitals told Monaghan they had no intensive care beds available.

Mr Walsh’s death has fed growing concern amongst rural communities that the HSE is intent on centralising specialist hospital services. These fears have been heightened by revelations the HSE wants to set up four hospital networks across the country with many worrying regional centres will be at a serious disadvantage.

Yesterday Prof Drumm said this “was only a proposed change” and admitted it had “led to a lot of confusion”.

“The networks will not affect patient care and would be dealing with administration only. There wouldn’t even necessarily be a network office in each area. They could all be managed from Naas.”

He welcomed the approval by Tánaiste Mary Harney yesterday of the HSE’s first corporate plan.

The plan lays out the HSE’s agenda from now to 2008 and sets out objectives such as improving patient experience of the health services and the empowerment of staff so they can deliver appropriate services.

Meanwhile, sanction has been given to appointing the advisory team Prof Drumm made a condition of accepting the HSE post.

Maureen Lynott, Dr Sean McGuire and Karl Anderson will work on the HSE reform package specialising in performance measurement advice, the development of primary care and on communications.