It’s no joke, fumes Kenny over idle hospital scanner

CANCER survivor and comedian Jon Kenny has blasted a Health Service Executive (HSE) decision to leave idle a €1 million lifesaving machine.

Mr Kenny said it was an “absolute disgrace that no one has been appointed” to operate a CT scanner at Mallow General Hospital.

The HSE (South), it emerged, is still waiting for approval to appoint a radiographer — although the machine arrived last December.

The D’Unbelievables star, diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease in 2000, said it “wasn’t rocket science” to arrange for the appointment of an operator to coincide with the arrival of the scanner.

“In the real world things like this are done in tandem. It’s disgraceful. What’s the point in having the machine and nobody to use it? It won’t be good for people’s health to have to travel to Cork, or Dublin, or somewhere else, because the machine isn’t available locally,” he said.

More than 100 patients travel from north Cork to Cork University Hospital for CT scans each month.

A month ago, a HSE spokesperson told the Irish Examiner: “The go-ahead for recruitment is expected shortly. In fact, it’s imminent.”

Yesterday, the HSE issued a new statement. It said: “Confirmation to proceed with the recruitment of staff to operate the new CT scanner at Mallow General Hospital is awaited. It was hoped that staff would be recruited last year. However, unforeseen costs arose in addressing the mandatory requirements of training bodies in respect of training junior medical staff at the hospital.”

The latest HSE statement appears to conflict a statement this week from Minister of State Batt O’Keeffe, who said the HSE informed him that recruitment of staff to run the new CT scanner “would commence in the very near future”.

He added he would insist that recruitment starts in weeks rather than months.

Noel O’Connor, spokes-man for Friends of Mallow Hospital, said the statements being issued did not instil much confidence.

“We were initially told by the HSE that recruitment was imminent. Now we’ve been told that confirmation to proceed with recruitment is awaited. I wonder what we will be told in two months’ time,” he said.

Mr O’Connor said that Friends of Mallow Hospital was “livid” at the delay and wanted to know why money for training junior medical staff had not been found from somewhere else instead of it being taken from the budget earmarked for operating such a vital piece of technology.