Health service must face reality

THE outcry, as reported across the media, following the failure to transfer a patient from Leitrim to London for a liver transplant, has been remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the promptness with which HIQA issued a report on the matter and the uncritical nature of the subsequent comments on the report.

According to the HIQA Report, at least 76 phone calls took place between 11 parties in Ireland and the UK in an effort to organise the transfer. This indicates the complexity of the task which involved coordinating activities between these 11 parties across two jurisdictions to organise both air and road transport facilities while taking account of weather and flight conditions and all of this to be completed within four hours of the first telephone call.