‘Stupid policy to blame for surgery cancellations’, says consultant orthopaedic surgeon

A consultant orthopaedic surgeon who cancelled four out of five hip operations two weeks ago — blaming the hospital’s escalation policy — had to cancel another four procedures yesterday.

Letterkenny General Hospital orthopaedic surgeon Peter O’Rourke said two hip replacement and two knee replacement operations were cancelled yesterday morning, with scheduled patients notified by phone.

He said two of yesterday’s cancellations included two of the patients who had their surgeries cancelled a fortnight ago. He said the majority of his patients are aged 65 upwards.

“I have now made the decision not to schedule any more new surgeries until patients who have endured cancellations have been operated on,” Mr O’Rourke said.

He said he went home early yesterday afternoon “because I had nothing better to do”.

Mr O’Rourke said there were three empty beds on the orthopaedic ward but that even though the emergency department (ED) was overcrowded, it was not possible to transfer patients from the ED because of the risk of cross-infection it would pose to orthopaedic patients.

He said a general surgical colleague also had surgeries cancelled.

Mr O’Rourke blamed the “stupid” escalation policy introduced by Health Minister Leo Varadkar for the ongoing cancellation of scheduled surgery. “The policy was introduced to appease those working in the ED but it has this knock-on effect on our work. I’m not the only one affected,” he said.

The escalation protocol, issued as a directive to acute hospitals last November by Mr Varadkar, makes it compulsory for hospitals to take specific steps to address ED overcrowding when it reaches crisis levels, including cancellation of non-urgent surgery. Hospitals who do not comply are subject to penalties with resources re-allocated.

Figures obtained by Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty in January show Letterkenny Hospital had the second highest number of cancellations for elective surgical procedures across the entire Saolta University Health Care Group over the past two years, with 351 scheduled procedures cancelled in 2014 and 2015.