Fresh concerns have been expressed by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) at the ongoing failure of the Health Service Executive (HSE) to implement the findings of a number of reports in relation to the provision of emergency surgery at Navan Hospital.
The Teamworkreport, published by the HSE last June, recommended emergency surgery be immediately removed from Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, as it was being "held together by only two consultants".
And earlier this year, another HSE-commissioned report from Capita Consultants found insufficient numbers of general surgeons in the hospital and no operating theatre fully staffed around the clock for emergency cases. It concluded that no emergency surgery cases should be admitted.
However, emergency surgery still takes place at the hospital 24 hours a day.
The IHCA has written to HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm about the situation, pointing out that if anything were to happen to a patient undergoing emergency surgery at the hospital now, after deficiencies were highlighted, then the HSE, and not the Navan Hospital surgeons, would have to accept responsibility.
The HSE, when asked to respond yesterday to the IHCA's concerns, said no "major" emergency surgery takes place in Navan at present, but it admitted "intermediate level" emergency surgery takes place there around the clock.
It claimed "significant progress has been made in relation to putting in place arrangements to ensure the continued safety of patients who present to Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, since the publication of various reports".
It said: "Agreement has now been reached that any surgical emergency who presents to Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, can now be referred by the on-call team to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, in the first instance, and if a bed is not available in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, then they are to contact Cavan General Hospital.
"This has been agreed with the two surgical teams based at both Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and Cavan General Hospital, pending ring fencing of a small number of surgical beds.
"In the event that it is not possible to give access to a bed in either one of these two hospitals, then referral is to be made to a hospital external to the network, which is currently the case with all other hospitals within the network".
However, the IHCA's deputy general secretary, Donal Duffy, said the transfer of patients to Cavan from Navan had not been agreed with surgeons in Cavan.
Furthermore, he said surgical beds had not been ring fenced in either Cavan or Drogheda for Navan patients.