The Health Service Executive received none of the funding it sought from the Government to develop services in the Midland Regional Hospital at the time senior doctors were warning about safety risks there, according to its director general, Tony O'Brien.
The HSE bid for €22 million to fund initiatives, including extra staff and services for the maternity unit in Portlaoise, but got nothing, he said.
Mr O’Brien said he helped clinical directors frame their bids when he worked in the HSE during the summer of 2011 and became aware of “deficits” identified in a number of programmes.
Later that year, clinicians at the Coombe, Portlaoise and Tullamore made a special appeal for funding to address “serious inadequacies” in obstetric staffing in the hospital.
Service plan
However, they received no response, and no extra funding was provided in the 2012 HSE service plan.
Patient safety would now have to "trump" policy decisions and an absence of resources, but this didn't mean there would be tension between the HSE and the Minister in charge, Mr O'Brien told RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke show.
Responding to the continuing fallout from the Portlaoise hospital controversy, he said the issues raised had their origins in “poor care, poor practice, an absence of compassion, managerial decision-making and politics”.
Henceforth, Mr O’Brien added, the HSE would have to be a more active partner in ensuring “the right decisions are made”.
