Board fears hospital will be downgraded in proposed reshuffle of acute services
THE MEDICAL board of Wexford General Hospital has raised concerns that its emergency department is not getting the same resources as general hospitals seeing fewer patients.
In a position paper just published, it said Wexford General’s emergency department saw 34,000 patients a year and had only one part-time consultant, assisted by other doctors. Its staffing level was “one of the lowest in the country, with a ratio of 28 patients per doctor per day”.
Comparing its situation with hospitals in Sligo and Cavan, it said Sligo General and Cavan General each had three consultants in emergency medicine and saw about 31,000 and 26,000 patients a year respectively.
“Although both of these hospitals see far less patients than Wexford General Hospital, the likelihood of facilities being removed is remote,” it said.
“Indeed, more resources are being provided to the emergency departments in these hospitals. We feel the people of Co Wexford have [as much] right to a well resourced emergency department as their counterparts in Cavan and Sligo,” it said.
The position paper has been issued amid growing concern at medical board level in the hospital that the facility will be downgraded when the HSE reorganises acute hospital services in the southeast. “If the emergency department [and the hospital] is to survive and continue to save lives, it must be expanded along the lines of other general hospitals of similar size,” the board said.
The board acknowledged that the recruitment of junior doctors was a significant issue for the hospital – and might adversely affect its ability to maintain current services, even before any changes proposed under reconfiguration were implemented. However, it said it had yet to be persuaded that what was being proposed under reconfiguration would result in improved services. This was because of a lack of capital funding associated with reconfiguration. Several wards had already closed at Wexford hospital due to budgetary cuts, the board said.
The reconfiguration of acute services in the southeast, where there are four hospitals – in Wexford, Waterford, Clonmel and Kilkenny – is still at planning stage. However, the Wexford hospital board fears it could result in many services in the southeast being centralised at Waterford Regional Hospital, or being transferred from Wexford to Waterford and from Clonmel to Kilkenny hospitals.
The HSE said all four acute hospitals in the southeast were represented on the reconfiguration steering group and that no decisions had yet been made. Nor had any recommendations been drawn up by the group.
However, it said Wexford General would continue as a fully functioning acute hospital with an emergency department and that planning permission had been sought for a new emergency department at the hospital.