Patients at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda are "exposed to a high level of risk across all departments" due to staffing shortages and infrastructural deficits, the hospital's medical board has warned.
In a letter to the Health Service Executive which has been seen by The Irish Times, the board has outlined several patient safety issues which result from these deficits and which are causing its members serious concern.
These include the fact that within the department of obstetrics, "midwife numbers are far short of national norms".
In critical care and anaesthesia there are "major risks" as a result of consultants being called to two emergencies at a time.
"The risk posed thereby are utterly unacceptable and must not be allowed to continue," the letter states.
The letter, which was sent to the HSE last month, also says the hospital needs more laboratory staff to cope with an increased workload. Large numbers of tests are now being sent at increased costs to private laboratories.
Furthermore the medical board says the hospital urgently needs a clinical microbiologist as there are ongoing issues regarding rates of hospital-acquired infection.
The amount of work going on in the diagnostic imaging department has increased hugely over the past six years, the letter adds, without any increase in clerical staff.
"Investigations in the diagnostic imaging department have increased from 55,000 to 99,000 per annum from 2000 to 2006 without any increase in clerical staff. The infrastructure of the department has serious deficiencies," it states.
It also says the departments of medicine and paediatrics in the hospital have been "censured" by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland due to low levels of staff in both.
And the medical board, which represents doctors in the hospital, also complains of low levels of medical and nursing staff in the A&E department in comparison to other hospitals with similar or lower workloads.
"The pressures on the department have contributed to increased nursing sick leave and the loss of key staff, particularly nurses with paediatric training."
It adds that one year on from Judge Maureen Harding Clark's inquiry into the high level of Caesarean hysterectomies at the hospital in the past, no move has been made to establish a properly-resourced audit department.
Details of the letter have emerged just days after the death of a 34-year-old woman within hours of giving birth to twins by Caesarean section at the hospital. One of the babies also died and the other remains in a critical condition. The HSE is to carry out a review of the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
And last month it was revealed that a separate report was presented to the HSE in December outlining the serious concerns of doctors in the hospital's department of medicine about the manner in which patients were being treated due to overcrowding in A&E.
They said a quarter of all medical admissions to the Lourdes Hospital were having to spend their entire hospital stay in A&E. "These patients get better despite us, rather than as a result of the care they receive," they wrote.
Last night a spokeswoman for the HSE said it had approved 22 additional midwives, three consultant anaesthetists and two specialist nurses for the Lourdes hospital last month.
This was in response to the Harding Clark report rather than in response to the medical board's letter, she said.
"The recruitment process for these posts has already commenced," she added.
In addition she said the HSE was currently looking at a comprehensive package to improve health services in the north east.