Surgeon ‘was reprimanded after carrying out emergency operation’

A SURGEON at Monaghan Hospital was reprimanded earlier this year because he carried out emergency surgery on a patient in breach of protocol, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny told the Dáil yesterday.

Mr Kenny mentioned the case in the context of 75-year-old Patrick Joseph Walsh, who bled to death from an ulcer last Friday because staff at Monaghan could not get a bed for him at three other hospitals - although it subsequently emerged both Drogheda and Cavan had intensive care beds available.

The staff themselves were unable to perform the live-saving operation required because Monaghan carries out only elective, and not emergency, surgery.

Mr Kenny said that, earlier this year, the surgeon in question had been criticised by both hospital management and the Health Service Executive (HSE) for carrying out the emergency operation. The implication was that staff at Monaghan may have been adverse to carrying out emergency surgery on Mr Walsh because of that case.

“It is incomprehensible that a man could have been allowed to die when personnel and medical staff were available with the necessary skills to carry out a vital lifesaving operation on him,” Mr Kenny said.

“Skilled people in Monaghan General Hospital had to stand around and watch a patient die because of an administrative blockage. That is a scandal, which rests politically with the Taoiseach and the Government.”

But the Taoiseach claimed that Mr Kenny had “assumed that the consultants were present watching the man die”.

“We should wait to find out what were the circumstances,” Mr Ahern added.

“We should wait to find out if protocols or a policy direction from either the HSE or the Department (of Health) had an effect in this instance. We should wait.

He said: “While I have learned of some of the circumstances, I am not prepared to state what I have heard until I see a report by an eminent person.”

That report will be prepared by Patrick Declan Carey, a consultant surgeon at Belfast City Hospital, who has been appointed to review the circumstances surrounding the case.

However, Mr Ahern suggested the restrictions prohibiting staff from carrying out emergency surgery were not the reason Mr Walsh died.

“There are protocols in place, but no protocols prevent doctors doing what is right for patients. They never did and never will.”

Mr Kenny said that Tánaiste Mary Harney, as Minister for Health, could, under existing legislation, issue a directive to the HSE “to the effect that no administrative procedure should prevent skilled surgeons and competent medical people from carrying out a life-saving operation.” Mr Kenny pushed the Taoiseach to order Ms Harney to do so.

But Mr Ahern ruled out such a move.

“If I came in here every morning announcing or defending political directives for individual hospitals, or interfering with protocols governing the running of hospitals, that would be entirely wrong.

“It is very sad when anyone dies, but it is wrong to intervene politically.”