HSE resources - Idle scanner a waste of vital funds

For the past three weeks, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has been spending about €6,000 a week sending public patients from Mallow General Hospital (MGH) to the Bon Secours private hospital in Cork for CT scans, while a scanner lies idle at MGH.

Following its purchase at a cost of €1.5 million, the scanner was idle for over a year. It was finally due to be commissioned in July 2008, but this had to be deferred because the specialist radiographer who was offered the position declined to take it up.

A second radiographer was then offered the position, but he declined it also, and a locum specialist took up duties last September until recently. Management at MGH have since made every possible effort to secure a locum to continue the service, according to the HSE.