Health Executive must resolve Monaghan issue - Taoiseach

The Health Services Executive must resolve the problems with the troubled Monaghan General Hospital, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.

A report is being carried out into the death of a 70-year-old patient at the hospital, after attempts to transfer him to three other hospitals for emergency surgery failed.

Mr Ahern said he hoped the Health Services Executive (HSE) would deal with the situation.

“The consultants up there, the medics up there, are fairly exhausted with all of this and I just hope now that in the context of this, the HSE, not only have an inquiry into these circumstances, but they can try and improve the situation,” he said.

Patrick Walsh, from Killanny, Carrickmacross, arrived at the hospital with a bleeding ulcer on Thursday but the doctors were not able to operate on him because of the ban on carrying out emergency surgery.

The staff had to give him several blood transfusions while they contacted Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Cavan General Hospital and Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

However, none of the three hospitals had an intensive care bed available and he died in Monaghan General in the early hours of Friday morning.

Mr Ahern said he sympathised with the family of Mr Walsh, but when asked if he supported the return of emergency services to the hospital, he said that was a matter for the HSE to address.

“From a Government point of view, we keep on putting in the money. We have a new unit there that’s not open. We’ve given money for medical and surgical, every time I go back there, I make another announcement about more resources that we’re putting in and then I keep hearing that they’re caught up with all these protocols tied into their physicians and surgeons,” he said.

The Health Services Executive said its National Hospital Office director Pat McLoughlin had asked for report on the circumstances surrounding the man’s death.

In 2002, Monaghan General Hospital was closed to elective and emergency surgery and its maternity services were suspended.

Since then the Monaghan Hospital Community Alliance has led a vigorous campaign to secure the future of the hospital.

The group has called for a full inquiry into Mr Walsh’s death.

It is the latest in a series of deaths which have been blamed on the lack of full services at Monaghan General Hospital.

In December 2002, a young baby named Bronagh Livingstone who was born prematurely, died en route to Cavan General Hospital after her mother was transferred from Monaghan Hospital because there were no maternity facilities there.