Varadkar attacks hospitals for turning away patients

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has hit out at hospital doctors who are refusing to accept patients outside their local area because they cannot cope with excessive waiting lists — insisting no such veto exists.

Reacting to weekend revelations that a small number of consultants in some of the country’s largest hospitals are rejecting referrals — including one for a 10-year-old suicidal boy — due to the chronic system problems, Mr Varadkar said the practice must not be allowed to continue.

Documents obtained by the National Association for General Practitioners, reported in the Sunday Business Post, show that, in recent weeks, patients referred to publicly funded hospital services are being turned away.

Association chairman Dr Keith Swanwick said such incidents have never occurred before and are creating a hidden “access denied” waiting list.

According to the files, overstretched consultants are blocking new entries on the grounds they cannot cope with those in their “catchment area”.

The rejection letters sent back to GPs from doctors at Cork University Hospital, the Mercy University Hospital, Beaumont, and the Mater say chronic staffing gaps mean the hospitals will not be able to accept patients from outside the local area — regardless of need.

They include: n A 10-year-old boy whose GP said was turned away for mental-health support despite suffering suicidal ideation after the death of his father, because the hospital did not have a child psychiatrist in place; n A pain management patient who was rejected by Beaumont because “we have reached the point where the ever-increasing demands on our service are now very much greater than the hospital’s capacity to see all patients in a timely manner”; n An adult in need of help from a urologist who was told by the Mercy he could not be seen as “I [the consultant] am one of four urologists providing a service to this region for approximately 865,000 patients. You are aware of the cutbacks in the HSE over the last number of years”.

Consultants have privately said they believe they have no other option than to turn people outside their local area away, as the service they are overseeing has more than 200 consultant post vacancies and cannot cope with demand.

Mr Varadkar said the situation is unacceptable, and emphasised that doctors have no power to refuse care based on geography. He said new patients must be accepted even where there are lengthy waiting lists.

While saying only “a dozen or half a dozen” consultants out of more than 3,000 in the system are resorting to the tactic, Mr Varadkar conceded that the problems show exactly where more consultants are needed.

The HSE said last night it is investigating the issue and that its “policy on outpatient services does not support the concept of closing services to new referrals as a mechanism for managing demand”.

Meanwhile, Mr Varadkar has said the emergency department trolley count has fallen significantly in recent days, from 610 to 209 late last week.

He said Wednesday’s 600-plus figure was not accurate and that 525 people waiting on trolleys in the units should be used to compare to previous levels.