A hospital consultant in the northeast has claimed a new directive issued by the Health Service Executive on the transfer of patients from Monaghan General Hospital may put patients at risk.
Dr Finbarr Lennon, lead surgeon at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, has also claimed the directive, issued after the death of Patrick Joseph Walsh and which stated that all requests for transfers to Cavan General Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital from Monaghan hospital should be granted and processed immediately, is "not sensible".
He has made his comments in a letter to the manager of the northeast hospital network, Chris Lyons, who circulated the new directive last week.
A consultant at Cavan General Hospital, Mr Noel McMurray, has also written to Mr Lyons about his concerns. He said that for safety reasons "inappropriate transfers" could not be accepted at Cavan hospital.
Mr Walsh (75), from Killanny, Carrickmacross, died at Monaghan hospital on October 14th. He bled to death after attempts by hospital staff to transfer him to other hospitals, including Cavan and Drogheda, for emergency surgery failed.
It was claimed, following Mr Walsh's death, that the other hospitals refused to take him as they had no intensive care beds available. It has since emerged that both hospitals had beds free.
Monaghan tried to transfer the patient as it is not allowed to conduct emergency surgery. An independent inquiry into the circumstances of Mr Walsh's death is under way.
Dr Lennon's letter, seen by The Irish Times, states that while the directive is "understandable in the circumstances", it could not form the basis for interprofessional management of medical and surgical emergencies requiring transfer from one hospital to another.
"Any request for a patient transfer should be initiated by a consultant," he writes. "To imply a transfer request from any source should be granted and processed immediately is not sensible and may potentially put a patient at risk. All transfers should be medically and surgically appropriate.
"From a surgical perspective it may not be appropriate to transfer patients with cardiothoracic, neurosurgical, vascular and urological emergency conditions to either Cavan or Drogheda hospitals. Many of these patients should be transferred directly to Dublin hospitals," he continues.
Mr Lyons said in his memo on the directive to staff that "this policy is based on senior medical advice". Mr Lennon argues it is "not sufficient to rely on notional senior medical advice without adequate consultation with consultants on the ground in the five northeast hospitals".
Concern has also been expressed at the directive by the Monaghan Hospital Community Alliance.
It said the order that hospitals must take patients from Monaghan whether they have beds or not is far from a solution to the problems of patients needing urgent surgery intervention in Monaghan. Patients could end up going from a bed in one hospital to a trolley in another, spokesman Peadar McMahon said.
A spokeswoman for the HSE northeast area said yesterday Mr Lyons was not commenting on the criticisms.
In a separate development, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has expressed concern at the fact that surgeons based in Drogheda are also on call for emergency surgery at Dundalk hospital. However the HSE says since a joint department of surgery between Drogheda and Dundalk hospitals came into operation in January, all major emergency surgery is transferred to Drogheda and it is mainly elective surgery conducted in Dundalk.