THE CHAIRMAN of the HSE West Regional Forum, Cllr Pádraig Conneely, yesterday called on Minister for Health Dr James Reilly to intervene in the performance of University College Hospital Galway (UCHG).
Cllr Conneely made his call after the Healthstat report by the HSE found that UCHG is the worst performing hospital in the State for the second consecutive month. “It is time now for Minster Reilly to intervene and call in management at the hospital,” he said.
“UCHG is the biggest acute hospital in the west of Ireland and it is embarrassing for us that it finds itself again as the worst performing hospital in the country. Patient care is suffering and it must be dealt with. A hands-on approach from the Minister is required.”
The Galway city-based Fine Gael councillor said: “Others in the acute hospital system are getting it right, so the reason why UCHG is not getting it right is the way the hospital is managed.”
The Healthstat survey of the State’s 29 main acute hospitals found that the best performing were Letterkenny General Hospital, St James’s Hospital, St Collumcille’s Hospital, Cavan General Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital.
The survey found UCHG to be the only hospital in the “red” zone, indicating that the level of service requires attention. The figures for UCHG for January show that in excess of 40 per cent of patients were waiting 12-24 hours to be admitted through the hospital’s emergency department, with less than 5 per cent waiting in excess of 24 hours.
The figures show that just over 20 per cent of patients are admitted within six hours of presenting at the emergency department. This compares with more than 90 per cent of patients being admitted in under six hours at the emergency department of St James’s Hospital.
In the Healthstat’s “red”, “amber” and “green” marking system, UCHG scores red under a number of headings including consultant contracts compliance, funding, variance with staff ceiling and waiting times for elective procedures. The hospital did record a “green” in relation to patients in urgent need for colonoscopies along with day case rates. Having the third worst absenteeism rate, behind Navan and Cavan General Hospitals, contributed to UCHG’s overall performance.
A spokeswoman for the HSE West said last night: “Senior management at Galway University Hospitals have been working closely with the Regional Director of Operations, HSE West, the National Director for Integrated Services and the CEO to address issues raised by HealthStat.
“We recognise that there are opportunities for improvement which are not resource dependent and these are being prioritised by quality improvement, clinical and administration support groups within the hospital.”
She said: “Issues such as the public sector moratorium on recruitment and the loss of key frontline support staff following the Voluntary Redundancy and Early Retirement Schemes at the end of last year, have impacted on our capacity to provide the level of service to which we aspire. The process is being actively managed and certain of the data points will be corrected in the February dashboard.”
