4,193 women at risk in ob/gyn delay as consultants warn over funding and waiting list crisis

The chief executive of one the country’s largest maternity hospitals is facing an unprecedented revolt among doctors because of chronic underinvestment in its gynaecology service where 4,193 women are awaiting outpatient appointments.

Tony McNamara, chief executive of Cork University Hospital, has received a written warning from doctors, seen by the Irish Examiner, that they “cannot and will not take responsibility” for women suffering adverse outcomes “arising from a well-documented chronic lack of investment in the gynaecology service”.

The group of about 20 consultants, almost the entire obstetrician/gynaecologist and neonatal cohort, also challenged a claim in a letter by Mr McNamara to the chair of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Peter Boylan, that the governance model for obstetrics, gynaecology, and neonatal services at the Cork University Hospital Group “works extremely well”.