The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is coming under increasing pressure to intervene in the Galway Hospice controversy, which now appears set to become a local election issue if there is no resolution.
The new chairman of the hospice board, Dr Richard Joyce, says the board will be faced with no other option than to appeal to the Minister if the Western Health Board (WHB) is unable to break the impasse.
Speaking to The Irish Times before a meeting last night with WHB chief executive, Dr Sheelah Ryan, Dr Joyce, who is a GP based in Gort, Co Galway, said the continued closure of the hospice to all new admissions had become a "scandal".
The Minister already has over 20,000 signatures on his desk, collected by community groups calling for the reopening of the hospice to new admissions.
Dr Ryan's decision to meet the hospice board is the first such meeting since publication of the independent review in March into medication procedures at the 12-bed unit. That review found a series of medication errors, four of which involved emergency intervention to sustain life, over an 18-month period up to May 2003.
Representatives of the WHB had been involved in meetings aimed at implementing the review's recommendations, but the clinical director at the hospice, Dr Dympna Waldron, has withdrawn indefinitely from further negotiations for medical reasons.
However, Dr Waldron is continuing to treat seriously ill cancer patients at University College Hospice, Galway (UCHG).
At last week's WHB monthly meeting, the WHB chief executive confirmed the only factor delaying reopening of the hospice unit to terminally ill patients was the absence of the clinical director. Dr Ryan also said the board's own investigation into bullying allegations made by staff against Dr Waldron in April 2002 was due to conclude in a matter of weeks, and the complainants were due to be interviewed "shortly". Dr Waldron denies all the allegations.
The hospice chairman, Dr Joyce, has appealed to the WHB to take action in the wake of this new development. "It would appear to be unusual that an employee is able to perform normal duties in one place of work, and could be certified to be unfit to even discuss the recommencement of similar duties at another location," Dr Joyce told The Irish Times.
Dr Joyce said that what made the situation all the more serious was the current bed crisis in UCHG.
"It seems to us to be remiss that a 12-bed unit can be shut down for a year when it could go a long way to alleviating the problem, apart from providing a more appropriate environment for seriously ill palliative care patients," he said.
The hospice's homecare service has been continuing throughout the crisis, he added.
Dr Joyce confirmed the WHB had proposed reopening the hospice with a GP-led service. "The hospice board campaigned for many years to have a consultant-led palliative care service, and we secured agreement for this," he said.
