AN ADVISORY group set up to assist with controversial hospital reconfiguration plans in Cork and Kerry should be expanded to include public representatives and patient advocates, a Labour TD has urged.
Cork North Central deputy Kathleen Lynch said the HSE has serious questions to answer regarding an advisory group dominated by business interests whose existence was only brought to light by media reports.
“What possible expertise can developers and business people provide to the HSE when it comes to reconfiguring health services? If you had health experts coming in from abroad, fair enough, but a board dominated by developers and business people just doesn’t wash with me. If this advisory group is to have any role, it has to be rebalanced by bringing in public representatives, healthcare managers and patient advocates,” Ms Lynch said.
The reconfiguration of hospital services has already caused controversy in Cork with the closure of a 24-hour emergency department at the Mercy University Hospital and the transfer of cancer services from the South Infirmary Victoria to Cork University Hospital.
The planned transfer of orthopaedic surgery from St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital in Gurranebraher to the South Infirmary Victoria is proving highly controversial amid fears that the HSE will sell off up to 30 acres of land at the Gurranebraher hospital.
Ms Lynch and Labour Party colleagues Jan O’Sullivan TD and Senator Phil Prendergast have asked the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee to invite the director of reconfiguration in HSE South, Prof John Higgins, to explain the existence of the advisory committee. Ms Lynch said they hope to ask Prof Higgins under what authority the advisory board was set up, how appointments were made and what controls are there to ensure that board members are not privy to confidential private and commercial information.
A HSE spokeswoman confirmed that Prof Higgins would accompany HSE chief Prof Brendan Drumm on his next attendance at the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee and would answer queries regarding the advisory group.
Concerns were expressed about the advisory group at last week’s meeting of the HSE South Regional Forum by several councillors including Fine Gael Councillor John Buttimer who said it was an insult to members of the forum that the group’s existence was kept secret from it. “It is a secret committee and it is perceived as a secret committee,” said Cllr Buttimer. He said the fact that Prof Higgins could make a presentation to the forum and fail to mention the group did not “engender trust”. Prof Higgins said the reason he had not made the regional forum aware of the group when he made his presentation in later September/early October 2009 was because the structure of the group had not yet been finalised.
The group was already in existence when he was appointed in March 2009 by the National Hospitals Office and he had sought to expand it by inviting people with medical and educational expertise to join the group and had done this, Prof Higgins said.