Consultants must be given tools to do the job

SHORTLY before reading Peter Molloy’s letter headlined ‘Health service must not be held to ransom by powerful, wealthy clique’ (Irish Examiner, January 30), I took a call from a surgeon in a Dublin hospital.

All the intensive care beds there were full while other critically ill patients were accommodated in sub-optimal facilities elsewhere in the hospital, including theatre recovery rooms.

In addition, all other beds in the hospital were full. The consequence of this was that the 12 operating theatres in that hospital were closed. The surgeon told me his operating list had been cancelled three times this month. I have no doubt other surgeons also were stopped from working.