Senior HSE staff drafted in to run West’s main hospitals

THE Department of Health has abandoned plans to bring in private management to resurrect the fortunes of the main hospitals in the West and will instead rely on the abilities of two existing senior health employees.

Just a few weeks ago, it emerged that five private companies were vying to manage Galway University Hospital as well as the Mid-Western Regional in Limerick.

However, late last night the Department of Health issued a statement saying Galway University Hospital, Merlin Park, Portiuncula , Ballinasloe and Roscommon General are to be placed under a single management structure with one CEO, Bill Maher, currently Acting CEO of St Vincent’s University Hospital. He will take up the role on January 9 on secondment.

In the Mid-West, the regional hospitals at Limerick (Dooradoyle) Ennis and Nenagh, together with the Orthopaedic Hospital at Croom and the funding arrangements for St John’s Hospital Limerick are to be placed within a single management structure under Ann Doherty, the former head of the National Hospitals Office who is currently part of the National Cancer Control Programme. She too will take up the role in January.

The department said the management solution which had initially been sought “did not provide a satisfactory result” and so Health Minister James Reilly had dipped into the expertise already in the system.

In both hospital groups, the new chief executives will have the power to reallocate resources within the various hospitals. They will be supported by a five member board, also from within the health system, with special expertise. Those boards will become a formal sub-committee of the HSE board.

The department gave an example of the challenges the new CEOs faced.

It said in July there were 14,000 people who, by December 31, would have been waiting a year for surgery. It has managed to reduce that to 650 but 500 of those are in Galway due to the problems that exist there.