HSE says new plan will allow other hospitals in region to focus on 24-hour trauma, writes LORNA SIGGINS
HSE WEST says its new plans for expanded day services at Roscommon County Hospital will serve a wider catchment area and help to reduce waiting lists in the region.
A new endoscopy unit and specialities in maxillofacial surgery, rheumatology and dermatology are to be introduced, according to HSE West regional director of operations, John Hennessy.
Services in ear, nose and throat, urology, gynaecology, orthopaedics and palliative care and rehabilitation are to be expanded, he told The Irish Times.
A full-time project manager has been assigned, and the aim is to eliminate a “current mismatch between trying to treat both trauma and elective cases”, which is “pushing up waiting lists” in the HSE West region, said Mr Hennessy.
“By offering medical and surgery assessments and services to patients in the wider HSE West region, it will allow centres like University Hospital, Galway [UHG] to focus on 24-hour trauma, and free up capacity to move less complex, but very important, work which tends to get relegated,” he said.
“The big issue is to restore the confidence of general practitioners and the public, by showing that we can facilitate better access to treatment and diagnostic tests.”
However, GPs in the Roscommon catchment area have sought clarification from the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) on immediate management of patients presenting with “acute symptoms suggesting heart attack”, given that the HSE West has described the “golden hour” as an “old concept”.
In a letter to the IHF, the GPs note that the foundation has cited a 50 per cent better chance of survival and improved outcome if treated within this “golden hour”.
“We estimate that from the time an ambulance is called to the time they are collected and transported to University Hospital Galway would take two hours to 2.5 hours, and in icy/snow conditions would take up to three hours,” the GPs’ letter says.
The GPs have asked the heart foundation to give “clear advice . . . regarding the recommended time it should take for a patient to receive treatment so that the patient has a better outcome and survival”.
Earlier this month, health unions gave a “cautious welcome” to the HSE West’s verbal commitment to expand elective services at the hospital, but sought a document in writing.
A meeting which was due to take place between HSE West and health unions in Galway yesterday to discuss the general budgetary situation in the region, and an update on Roscommon, was cancelled at short notice, and Siptu has warned of temporary closures as a result.
Roscommon Hospital Action Committee’s spokesman, John McDermott, said yesterday that while it welcomed all new elective services, this would “in no way compensate for the withdrawal of emergency services”.
He said that further budgetary cutbacks to hospitals in the HSE West region would have a knock-on effect on emergency cover promised for Roscommon patients in other hospitals, including UHG and Portiuncula in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
The decision to close Roscommon’s emergency department on July 11th aroused strong opposition locally, with the political controversy extending to pre-election pledges on retaining services there made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Health James Reilly.
Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten lost the party’s whip when he voted against the Government in early July in a motion by Sinn Féin to retain emergency services at smaller hospitals, and two Fine Gael councillors also resigned from the whip on the local authority.
As protests continued, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) issued a statement to clarify its role, in which it said it had not recommended closure of the hospital, but had expressed “serious concerns” about the quality and safety for patients at the facility.
The authority said its two statutory investigation reports into Ennis and Mallow hospitals identified serious concerns for patient safety at these and similar-sized hospitals such as Roscommon.
The Roscommon Hospital Action Committee in turn called on Hiqa to conduct an investigation into the risks associated with loss of emergency services.