Management of Wexford General Hospital have been advised that maternity services will resume at the hospital from 9am on Friday after a fire on Wednesday rendered about half of the hospital’s 200 beds unusable in the short term.
Technical assessments of the damage were ongoing at the site on Thursday afternoon but 29 patients continued to receive treatment after it became clear that it was safe for them to stay as the effects of the fire were localised.
Key utilities in parts of the hospital – including water, electricity and oxygen supplies – remain functional despite the fire. The 29 are understood not be to acutely ill.
In a statement on Thursday evening, the hospital confirmed maternity services will resume on Friday.
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“If any expectant mothers have queries in relation to their care in WGH’s maternity unit, they can ring the labour ward, 053 915 3368,” the statement said.
“Outpatient appointments will also recommence from Monday morning.”
Speaking at lunchtime on Thursday, Prof Obada Taha Yousif, the hospital’s clinical director, said that meetings between managers and outside assessors would continue over the course of the afternoon and that it is hoped to have a much better sense this evening of which services can be restored quickly.
He said many medical services, including oncology, which was relocated during the pandemic, are continuing to be provided as normal at the nearby Ely Hospital.
He said he anticipated that all antenatal services would likely resume at Wexford General over the next day or so but said the wider time frame would become clearer as the day went on.
“The technical assessment is under way,” he said. “We will establish then what services we can bring back and how quickly we can bring them back but it has to be done in a safe manner for our patients and in a co-ordinated way so that we don’t lose any patient in the process. The safety of our patients is of primary importance.”
In all, about 100 of the hospital’s roughly 200 beds are said to have been significantly affected by the fire and the action required to put it out. The blaze occurred above an area containing wards and so in addition to fire damage, there is also smoke and water damage, according to the hospital’s general manager, Linda O’Leary.
[ Wexford hospital patient: ‘You could smell smoke and the alarms were going off’Opens in new window ]
Ms O’Leary said that she was “very hopeful that we can resume outpatient appointments on Monday but beyond that it’s not just about beds and we are waiting for those technical assessments with regard to what the critical services [electricity and oxygen supply] will be available to us. They will allow us to make an informed and safe decision about services for next week.”
She said all outpatient appointments and elective procedures had been cancelled for Thursday and Friday but said the number of people affected was not readily available.
Prof Yousif said that emergency cases, including coronary, would be sent to University Hospital Waterford and St Vincent’s hospital while the hospital’s emergency department was closed and said this did not represent a change in relation to where many would have eventually been sent for their “definitive treatment”.
With regard to maternity, “antenatal services will be up and running within a day or so” he said and “we are working on plans to re-establish other services as quickly as possible but Waterford is the nearest hospital and [it] has agreed to take the maternity and other emergency patients for as long as we need them to. We are very grateful to our sister hospitals in Waterford and Kilkenny, in particular, but also the Mater and St Vincent’s and Cork and the Mercy, a lot of hospitals came to our rescue and we really appreciate it.”
Earlier, a senior officer with Wexford fire services said that the damage to the hospital building is “medium to small”. The fire was “not large” and had been confined to a small area in a plant room on the roof of the building.
Ray Murphy told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland that the fire occurred in a section over a central hub that included maternity and paediatric wards, as well as the intensive care unit. The plant room contained the heating system, ventilation, air conditioning along with flammable material, all of which would have been “very, very safe” when operating under normal conditions, he said.
Mr Murphy said he suspected it was a piece of equipment that started the fire. “Maybe a pump. Or it could have been a mortar or a belt or something to that effect. But that still remains to be analysed.”
Fortunately the fire service was familiar with the building and already had a plan in place, added Mr Murphy. There was a very strong fire safety team in the hospital too.
“We know they can certainly start getting back up and running in days. But obviously to get the 207 patients back in, it’s going to take probably weeks and months. But I can see the hospital turning this around. Certainly in the next couple of days, they’re going to start putting the building together again.”
The HSE’s chief operations officer, Damien McCallion paid tribute to staff for their response to the crisis, evacuating and supporting patients. “Some staff remain in the hospital. Other staff transferred with patients and we’ll assess that over the coming days,” he said.
Mr McCallion has said that every effort will be made to restore services at Wexford General hospital as soon as possible, but that a full assessment will have to be carried out first.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, Mr McCallion said that the main focus will be patients.
Outpatients services at the hospital are cancelled for Thursday and Friday and all urgent and emergency cases will have to go to other hospitals in the region, he said.
Restoration of maternity services will be one of the priorities, he said, but in the intervening period, arrangements have been put in place with University Hospital Waterford for maternity services.
Mr McCallion acknowledged that there were challenges that came with the transfer of patients such as the transfer of their medical records. A technical assessment will underpin the next actions, he said. “Key areas in this instance will be areas like oxygen supplies and electrical safety. Those are some of the key elements given where part of the fire occurred. So it’s too early to say where and what time frame that will happen.
That assessment will take at least a day to determine what level of services can be restored and when.
[ Response to Wexford hospital fire shows staff were well trained, says expertOpens in new window ]
Meanwhile, the Cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council, Cllr George Lawlor, has commended emergency services for the “war-like effort” to evacuate patients and contain the fire which broke out at Wexford general hospital on Wednesday.
The “remarkable war-like effort” had been co-ordinated between the emergency services and various voluntary and private bodies such as the Order of Malta, the Irish Red Cross, the Civil Defence, and companies including the Lifeline Private Ambulance to ensure that patients were efficiently and speedily transferred.
Cllr Lawlor said it had been a distressing time for staff, one of whom was his daughter, a nurse, whom he understood accompanied a patient who was transferred from Wexford to Navan hospital.
Wexford TD Verona Murphy praised the emergency services and hospital staff and management for the manner in which they handled the fire and subsequent evacuation.
“It was a mammoth task,” she told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland. “And whilst it was chaotic, it was organised efficiently. “It just couldn’t have run more smoothly. And I’m sure there were things that we don’t know about, but for the most part it was about the preservation of life. And that was maintained.”
Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane has said that patient safety has to come first, when asked how quickly Wexford General hospital could reopen.
“Obviously community services are being looked at through nursing home capacity, private hospital capacity may have to be used as well. It’s a massive undertaking to evacuate that level of patients and obviously credit has to go to all of those who are involved in that,” he told RTÉ Radio.
“But I have to make the point that hospitals since the summer into the autumn and the winter have been operating at near 100 per cent capacity. So it’s difficult when we hit a crisis point for hospitals to be able to respond. And that’s why patients had to travel far, because the capacity simply wasn’t in the hospitals in the region.”
Former minister for public expenditure Brendan Howlin has warned that any move to delay the building of a new 96 bed unit at Wexford General hospital as a result of the fire on Wednesday would be “a tragic mistake.” Mr Howlin, who is a TD for Wexford, told RTÉ Radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show that he was concerned that the fire might be used as an excuse to delay the new unit.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that he has been in contact with the Attorney General about seeking planning derogations to allow the faster construction of new hospitals.
Mr Donnelly was speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland from Wexford where he expressed his commitment for plans for a new 96 bed block.
