Cardiac patients must be discharged in order to get heart tests

PATIENTS in Cork University Hospital (CUH) cannot access certain heart tests in a new €80 million cardiac renal centre.

But once they are discharged from hospital, they would have priority access to the centre as outpatients.

Due to a shortage of echocardiogram testing staff at CUH, management decided outpatients would be given priority.

As a result, a patient must check out and seek the test through the outpatients’ department if a heart sonogram is required.

Echocardiograms are non-invasive procedures used to diagnose cardiovascular disease and provide detail on the size, shape of the heart, its pumping capacity and any damage to tissue.

The lack of testing staff is being blamed on the public sector recruitment embargo which forbids any new appointments. It’s understood that Clonmel General Hospital has as many echo cardiogram technicians as CUH.

The €80m cardiac unit was opened earlier this year and billed as the specialist cardio-renal centre for the entire Munster area. Up to €17m was spent on equipment for the unit.

Staff at CUH have described the situation as “indefensible” and said that it is a battle for “even seriously ill patients” to access the test. “It is an absolutely disgraceful situation, especially in a tertiary referral centre. The recruitment embargo is illogical and detrimental to patient care and in the long term, does not make economic sense.”

A spokeswoman for the HSE yesterday acknowledged that there “is an increased demand for these tests across the hospital” and that “staff challenges are a factor due to the moratorium”.

She said that while some patients may leave the hospital without the test, seriously ill patients are given echocardiograms when they are in hospital.

“Rather than delay a patient’s discharge from hospital, a clinician will determine if it is appropriate to discharge a patient with a less serious indication for an ECHO. Patients are then invited to have their ECHO procedure at CUH as an outpatient”.

The HSE is hoping that outstanding staffing issues will be addressed when all non-invasive cardiology services are centralised at CUH and more technicians come onsite.

Meanwhile, the delivery of electrocardiograms (ECG) has also been limited at CUH.