HSE seeks to confirm no repeat of Tallaght scandal

THE Health Service Executive has asked all hospitals to confirm they have no unopened referral letters from GPs seeking treatment for their patients.

In a letter sent to all public facilities in the wake of the Tallaght Hospital scandal, the HSE’s Serious Untoward Incident Unit (SUI) urged hospitals to confirm similar problems are not occurring elsewhere.

The letter, sent on Thursday by the head of the SUI, Anne Carrigy, asked hospitals “to confirm you have no unopened letters to diagnostic and speciality services”.

And noting the National Hospital Office’s (NHO’s) code of practice for addressing GP referral correspondence, Ms Carrigy reminded administrators that all letters must be stamped on receipt, recorded and labelled priority or referral on arrival at a department to ensure accountability.

The letter was sent after Tallaght Hospital faced further criticism over revelations that thousands of GP referral letters since 2002 were left unopened and that 57,921 X-rays were not properly reviewed.

Protests took place outside the facility yesterday afternoon, with a number of groups present calling for Health Minister Mary Harney to resign over the crisis.

However, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said he continues to have full confidence in the minister, who is due to return to Ireland from her 15 day St Patrick’s Day junket to New Zealand on Monday.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that €160 million in budget cuts will be imposed this year on the country’s five teaching hospitals.

The cuts — which includes a €30.3m reduction for Tallaght Hospital, €28.7m for the Mater, €26m for St Vincent’s, €36.5m for Beaumont, and €37.4m for St James’s — is in addition to a budget cut of €19.6m at the Dublin maternity hospitals.

The HSE has defended the move as necessary because hospitals need less money to pay staff due to public sector pay cuts and that more patients are being seen on a day-case basis.