Nurses seek review of ‘unsafe’ hospital
INO vice-president Sheila Dickson claimed nurses were “vulnerable” at the hospital, whose consultants last week launched an unprecedented attack on the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Ms Dickson said the INO was asking the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to review the “unsafe” conditions in which some staff were working at Kerry General.
She said there was an alarming lack of both medical and nursing personnel and facilities at the hospital.
“It’s apparent the hospital has been, and continues to be, neglected when compared with hospitals of a similar size throughout the country,” she said.
HIQA is an independent authority set up to drive quality, safety, accountability and the best use of resources in the health and social care services.
Six leading consultants at Kerry General told a Kerry County Council meeting last week that the hospital was at breaking point because of a shortage of medical staff. Tom McCormack, a consultant surgeon at the hospital, said shortfalls in facilities and personnel had been highlighted to the HSE on several occasions, but to no avail.
He also claimed the HSE was “totally bloated” with management and administration, but there was a woeful deficiency in the appointment of new doctors and nurses at the hospital.
Mr McCormack said medical consultants were under extreme pressure due to understaffing.
Meanwhile, the HSE South is to meet management from the cash-strapped Southwest Counselling Centre, based at the Franciscan Friary in Killarney, to discuss the funding crisis being experienced by the centre.
The counselling service had warned that it may have to close next month unless the HSE increases its annual allocation of €25,000.
The meeting is to take place in Tralee on Thursday next.
The centre provides low-cost counselling services to young people, but is not taking on new clients due to a lack of Government funding.
The number of counselling hours has trebled in recent years, but the HSE level of funding has remained the same for the past eight years.
