Patients will die over HSE’s cost-cutting, warns doctor

PATIENTS in the north-east will die because the Health Service Executive will continue to cut back on services even if plans to develop a new regional hospital are shelved, a doctor warned yesterday.

Dr Illona Duffy, a GP in Monaghan, said she was not surprised when Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern said there was no money to build a regional hospital in the area after a political row broke out over its location.

“We have always said it was unlikely the hospital would ever be built but the problem is services continue to be withdrawn,” said Dr Duffy who said saving money seemed to be the HSE’s ultimate aim.

“There will be short-term measures introduced to save money but there will be long-term pain because patients will suffer,” she warned.

“I am not scare-mongering because I have seen this happening,” she said.

GPs in the region were being called out by the ambulance control centre to deal with serious road traffic accidents and other emergency situations until an ambulance arrived.

The doctor claimed this was happening because ambulances were covering long distances between acute hospital units and there were too few available.

“GPs are not trained to deal with emergency situations requiring hospital care,” said Dr Duffy.

Monaghan Community Alliance chairman Peadar McMahon said people would take to the streets over the proposal to locate a regional hospital in Navan, Co Meath.

Mr McMahon said local hospitals like Monaghan General Hospital should be capable of providing basic emergency services when needed.

“We will join any campaign that will help us retain services at Monaghan,” he said.

Sinn Féin’s health spokesman, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, said centralising hospital care in the region would be disastrous.

And, he said, the regional hospital might as well be in Dublin as in Navan, Co Meath, as far as the people of counties Monaghan, Louth and large swathes of Cavan were concerned. “There is little difference in the distance they would have to travel and road access would be superior.”

Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan said she was surprised Navan was recommended as the location for a regional hospital in the north east when other centres in the region were better served by transport.

Also, consideration of the “golden hour” during which emergency cases had to get to hospital did not appear to have been fully taken on board.

Report details

In June 2006 the Health Service Executive published a report on hospital services recommending an overhaul of the way acute hospital care is delivered in the north east.

Report warns that the present system, where five local hospitals are delivering acute care to a small catchment area has exposed patients to increased risks.

Recommends the development of local services with existing five hospitals playing central roles and the development of a regional acute hospital.

HSE says it will take at least five to seven years to fully implement the report.

Health authority gives “clear commitment” as health services in the region are developed, existing services will remain in place or be developed until replaced with higher quality, safer services.

Following a local tender process, the Health Partnership was selected by the HSE to carry out a location study for the new regional hospital.

The location study took account of a number of key issues including the geography of the north east, accessibility in terms of distance and travel time of patients, current and future population growth.

The HSE received the Health Partnership’s report recommending the location of the hospital yesterday and it is due to go before the board of the health authority next week.

A briefing of local elected councillors and members of the Oireachtas is to form a key part of the arrangements that the HSE will put in place when the report and its recommendations are published.

Compiled by Evelyn Ring