A preliminary report into an incident at one of the State's largest hospitals, where a teenage patient had to be pushed by her parents to an operating theatre, has found that one in five porters was recorded as absent or out sick on the day in question.
The report was carried out after a 17-year-old girl had to be pushed to an operating theatre at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital by members of her family on October 23rd last.
It reveals that 11 out of 53 porters were absent or out sick that day and is also critical of union officials who refused to allow porters to be redeployed to other areas.
Siptu claimed that a porter had offered to collect the patient but was refused permission by a line manager.
The HSE says it has found no evidence to support this claim.
On the day in question, the patient, who was suffering internal bleeding, was first brought to the A&E department by her parents where she was stabilised at the endoscopy unit and made ready for theatre.
A porter was paged at 2.40pm but none was made available, resulting in the teenager having to be pushed on a trolley by her parents, a doctor and nurse and one of the hospital managers.
According to the report, when a porter was bleeped, an unidentified male responded from the porter's restroom. He refused to identify himself and told the endoscopy nurse that management was to be contacted if a porter was needed.
This man has still not been identified and this has been included in a list of issues to be further investigated by the HSE into what it described as a "near-miss" incident.
The other issues include:
- the whereabouts of the porter who was "missing" for much of the morning of October 23rd, 2007;
- the assertion by Siptu that a porter had offered to collect the patient but was refused permission by a line manager (no evidence has been found to date to support this);
- the circulation of monthly reports on sick leave/absenteeism by unit and department, with appropriate follow-up in any case of abuse of the sick leave scheme; the conclusion of the clinical risk investigation into the near-miss incident.
A Siptu spokesman said last night the "real difficulty" related to the non-replacement of porters on prolonged illness.