A decision on the future of the emergency department at Portlaoise hospital has been put off until the autumn at the earliest.
Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said a health service report on the emergency department would not be ready until the autumn because of the amount of consultation involved.
Mr Varadkar poured cold water on calls from local TDs for the retention of 24/7 cover in Portlaoise, saying even large hospitals with greater numbers of staff do not enjoy this level of cover.
In hospitals with four or five emergency consultants, staff were oncall from home in the evenings or weekends.
The public had to decide what level of patient safety risk was acceptable where it isn’t possible to recruit staff to provide 24/7 cover or there weren’t enough patients for them to keep up their skills.
“We have to decide whether we are willing to accept inferior or non-specialist service just because it is local,” he told the Dáil.
Part of Portlaoise’s problems as identified in recent reports was due to a struggle to hire additional consultants in obstetrics and paediatrics, he said.
This issue wasn't particular to Portlaoise, either; the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin recently advertised two consultant posts and got no applicants.
He said there had to be a serious conversation with the public as to whether it was willing to accept inferior service when it was not possible to staff units with specialists.
In Ireland, he noted, it was deemed acceptable to staff many units with doctors who were not on the specialist register of the Medical Council. There may not be enough specialists available, he said.
