Doctors’ fury over advertisement on ending of 24-hour A&E

A GP group in the mid-west has expressed outrage over a HSE advert announcing its plans to end 24-hour A&E services at Nenagh General Hospital.

The transfer of A&E services from both Ennis and Nenagh to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick has been opposed by the Clare and North Tipperary GP committee.

In the advert, running in the Nenagh Guardian, the HSE states that Nenagh A&E is open from 8am to 8pm, and patients can only be admitted outside of those hours, if pre-arranged through their GP.

It gives details of an emergency out-of-hours GP service — Shannondoc.

But secretary of the committee, Dr Brendan Thornton, said Shannondoc had specifically asked the HSE not to refer to it in the advert, and if it did, to emphasis that it is not a substitute for A&E.

“When A&E shuts at 8pm there is a gap left in the services which the HSE is expecting Shannondoc — a service already working very hard — to fill,” he said. “Shannondoc is a an urgent family doctor service and this is fundamentally different to A&E services.”

Dr Thornton said the HSE had decided to unilaterally press ahead with the downgrading of services, even though people on the ground were opposed to it.

“Nothing has been agreed with GPs, yet the implementation group intends to proceed,” he said. “We were irritated and frustrated before this, but now we are utterly raging.

“It is insanity. All the rules of safety are being broken.”

Dr Thornton said it was particularly bizarre to go ahead with the transfer on Easter week: “We have been consistently told that safety is paramount, but this is not safe.”

Dr Thornton said just last week the GP group had held further discussions with the HSE outlining in considerable detail their disagreement on the grounds of safety and lack of preparedness on the ground.

“Unfortunately, the HSE has shown an unwillingness to allow modification, let alone delay, to a set of plans we collectively feel are unsafe to our community.”

Dr Thornton added that the transfer of services — after round-the-clock A&E services are withdrawn next week and the HSE plan to withdraw acute surgical services in July — meant the regional hospitals were simply clinics.

The HSE said the new arrangements are being driven by patient safety, with the new emergency department in Nenagh hospital now forming part of a fully integrated, regional wide consultant-led emergency service. It said the emergency centre will be open daily between 8am and 8pm and will continue to be staffed by its full complement of doctors and nurses during its opening hours.