‘Minister should see poor state of University Hospital Kerry’

Staff and equipment issues puts facility at risk of level 2 downgrade.

A consultant at University Hospital Kerry (UHK) said Health Minister Simon Harris should see for himself the amount of imaging equipment that is lying idle or broken.

Consultant radiologist Martin Schranz was among 24 consultants who met with Gerry O’Dwyer, CEO of the South SouthWest Hospital Group (SSWHG), last Friday to highlight longstanding concerns about consultant staffing deficits and under-resourcing.

Dr Schranz said the the department of radiology was “in dire need of more space, equipment, and staff, in order to fulfil the demands being placed on it, as a level 3 hospital”.

“I would ask that the minister, Simon Harris, come down himself and walk around the hospital, to see for himself the state it is in,” he said.

“In particular, I would invite him to visit the radiology department and see the Dexa [bone density] scanner, donated by the public, gathering dust in a corner, the irreversibly broken fluoroscopy machine [medical imaging], the idle second CT scanner, with no staff to operate it, and an ultrasound machine lying idle, with no proper room to work from.”

Last week, the Irish Examiner reported that the consultant board at UHK had written to SSWHG chiefs, warning the hospital could not continue to operate as a level-3 facility without greater group support.

UHK is a level-3 hospital, catering for acute medical and surgical patients, with a 24-hour emergency department, but doctors warn that it is at risk of becoming a level-2 facility, treating low-risk medical patients only and putting ambulance by-pass protocols in place.

The hospital is without a full-time cardiologist or respiratory physician; its clinical director, Claire O’Brien, has temporarily stepped down due to clinical pressures, and a pathologist is also set to leave.

Dr Schranz said he was disappointed that no offer of substantial funding was forthcoming at Friday’s meeting.

“I felt that the executives did not seem to get either the urgency nor the gravity of the situation the hospital is in.”

However, Fianna Fáil TD for Kerry John Brassil, who is due to meet SSWHG chief operations officer Ger O’Callaghan today, said he received more positive feedback from the meeting.

“The people who came, to me, seemed satisfied that they will no longer be ignored,” he said.

Mr Brassil said that there was some commitment by SSWHG management to act in relation to more pressing issues, such as the appointment of a cardiologist.

“The feedback I got is that there is a realisation that something needs to be done,” he said.

“Until such time as UHK is supported, both financially and clinically, within the group, it will always be the poor relation.”

A follow-up meeting between consultants and Mr O’Dwyer has been set for November 5.

Last October, the hospital had to review 46,000 scans, after concerns about the professionalism of a radiologist who no longer works at the hospital. Eleven patients were identified as having a missed or delayed diagnosis.