250 complaints follow HSE budget cuts

DOCTORS have reported more than 250 complaints in recent weeks detailing how the Health Service Executive (HSE) recruitment embargo and budget cuts have hit the delivery of services and patient care.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), which is receiving the complaints by email daily, is angry at suggestions doctors are lying.

IMO chief executive George McNeice said: “Casting such aspersions is no way to do business. We are all professionals and we should conduct our business in a professional manner – with facts and concrete evidence.”

Complaints to the IMO in the last week about the cutbacks have ranged from their effects on a cancer patient, to elderly care, and resources for cystic fibrosis patients.

A patient with lymphoma was allowed home from a Dublin hospital for a short period, with plans to readmit the person within five days.

The patient on chemotherapy was due to become neutropenic, where white blood cell levels become dangerously low, and was scheduled for in-patient supervision and treatment.

But due to bed closures in other areas of the hospital, the patient could not be readmitted. The patient subsequently required urgent admission to a regional hospital after becoming acutely unwell with neutropenic sepsis.

In the Mercy University Hospital, Cork, a GP sought an urgent appointment for a patient, but was told there were no out-patient clinics.

Cutbacks have seen funding for an extra nurse under the cystic fibrosis service in Cork delayed.

Home help hours for the vulnerable and elderly have also been reduced in Kerry. Some patients may need to be admitted to hospital without adequate support at home, say doctors.

The HSE has disputed IMO claims its jobs embargo is slowing frontline services or impacting on patient care. It has defended moves to reduce its €230 million deficit saying claims being made are “misleading or simply untrue”.