The revelation yesterday that vital heart treatment equipment at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin has broken down 28 times since the beginning of the year has led to criticism of Government by opposition parties and patients' representatives who claim it is putting patients lives at risk.
Correspondence between the Departments of Health and Finance, released to the Sunday Independent under the Freedom of Information Act, said the equipment's failure meant that in a number of instances images were lost and patients had had to have their heart treatment discontinued, "placing them at risk of an unfavourable outcome".
The cardiac catheterisation laboratory equipment at St Vincent's had not been replaced since 1989, the correspondence showed. However, the Department of Health said last night it had been replaced since the letter was written in June.
The correspondence also referred to a litany of difficulties at other hospitals, including the fact that the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin had been forced to cancel a large number of patient X-rays because its equipment was unsafe; that environmental health officers who inspected the kitchens at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire found weighing scales for food covered in rust, delph stored on the floor, tiling behind sinks dirty and water leaking all over the floor; and that no money had been set aside for the redevelopment of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, where physical conditions have been condemned as outdated and below international standards.
Furthermore, a letter from the secretary-general of the Department of Health, Mr Michael Kelly, to the Department of Finance warned that it may be necessary for some hospitals to close further beds. Up to 500 have already closed this year.
The chairman of the Irish Patients' Association, Mr Stephen McMahon, said there was an urgent need for investment in the areas highlighted so patients didn't continue to be put at risk.
"What we have now is a health system that, if it went for its MOT, it wouldn't pass," he said.Society would have to look at paying extra taxes to fund a safer health system.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said the failure to replace and maintain equipment put lives at risk and represented a false economy as if, once piece of equipment was out of order, specialist staff could be left "twiddling their thumbs".
"Three years ago the Government-commissioned Deloitte & Touche value-for-money report highlighted the urgency of increasing hospitals' small capital and maintenance budgets which this Government did not see fit to implement," she said.
"This again shows Minister Martin and his Government for what they do best, commissioning expensive reports, failing to follow their recommendations and ignoring the health service while it continues to deteriorate to dangerous, intolerable crisis levels," she said.
Senator Kathleen O'Meara, of Labour, said it was bad enough that patients should have to wait months and sometimes years on hospital waiting lists, but it was "simply intolerable" that when they eventually got a bed they should be put at risk by faulty equipment and totally inadequate standards of safety and hygiene.