Patient's death 'not a political issue'

The death of a 75-year-old Monaghan man in hospital is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive, not a blame game for politicians, HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm said today.

Prof Drumm said his organisation must be allowed to provide the best care possible, regardless of the local political concerns of public representatives.

He spoke out after the Government came under heavy criticism in the Dáil following the death of Patrick Walsh from a bleeding ulcer last Friday in Monaghan General Hospital.

Medics had scoured hospitals in Cavan, Drogheda and Dublin but failed to find a bed for Mr Walsh, despite two being available, according to Prof Drumm.

A Belfast consultant is now carrying out an independent review of the incident and is due to report within two months.

“I have to accept responsibility for this as an HSE issue, this is not a blame game for politicians,” Mr Drumm said.

“We have to accept responsibility for configuring our services in the best possible way and that is not across five acute sites open 24 hours a day.”

Prof Drumm said it was not possible to have five acute hospitals catering for a population of only 300,000 people, as demanded by local politicians.

“We’re challenged by a situation in the north east whereby we have five acute care units on call,” he said.

“This results in a situation, for instance, in Monaghan where we are trying to provide acute care for a population of 50-60,000.

“I would challenge anyone to find an expert group across this world who will justify the maintenance of 24-hour surgery and the skills required to provide that at an adequate level to a population of that size.

“It is not justifiable and this is not a political situation.

“It almost saddens me in the health service to see that this becomes a political battlefield involving Taoiseach, Tánaiste and others when something like this happens.

“This is a health service issue. Can we actually provide five acute care services across a population not much greater than 300,000? International expertise would tell us no.

“My challenge coming into this service was to provide the best possible care for people.

“I intend to pursue that irrespective of political demands for maintaining services in situations where they clearly cannot be safely maintained.”

Prof Drumm said Mr Walsh should not have died, but the existing system had failed.

“I have very significant concerns about our ability to provide a quality of service to people like Mr Walsh in a situation where we divide our resources, which are provided at great expense by the taxpayer, across a number of sites, that’s unjustifiable,” he told RTÉ Radio.

“It’s not good enough for me and I don’t think it’s good enough for those who pay for it.”

Prof Drumm insisted resources must be consolidated rather than spread over too wide an area.

“I would challenge anybody in the political or health system to produce any group of experts on an international level, who are not tied down by the local politics of this issue, to state that we should be maintaining five acute services across a population of 300,000,” he said.

“If people are asking for that, I’m saying that that is not in the best interests of patients.”