IT IS difficult to justify 24-hour AE services at Ennis and Nenagh general hospitals in terms of value for money, longer term sustainability and governnance, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE) in an eight-page unpublished implementation plan for the overhaul of hospital services in the midwest.
Earlier this year a draft of the Teamwork consultant’s report stated that €370 million would be needed for the reconfiguration of health services in the region.
However, the implementation plan seen by The Irish Times contains no costings for the projects and states that from April, the present AE service in the local hospitals will be separated into medical assessment units and local emergency centres (LEC). The plan states that the LECs will only deal with all self-referred acute emergencies and minor injuries and will operate on a 12-14 hour basis seven days a week.
On the key requirements to support the centralising of 24-hour AE serivices, the document states that the GP out-of-hours service will be provided with the capacity to deliver on its workload without the AE option. GPs in Clare and north Tipperary have stated that they will not support the plan, while a public meeting was held in Nenagh last Saturday to outline local opposition.
