A detailed report on how standards should be restored at Cavan General Hospital has been submitted to the North Eastern Health Board by a surgical expert, it was confirmed yesterday.
Prof Arthur Tanner, director of surgical affairs at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said he compiled the "multifactorial" report after a visit to the hospital last week.
"It deals with reinstituting standards, care pathways, clinical guidelines, audit meetings, all the sorts of the things that are necessary to ensure that a surgical service runs smoothly," he said.
"If the aspirations of my report are met, the standard of surgical care in Cavan will be on a par with anywhere else in this country," he added.
Prof Tanner said a lot needed to be done to restore confidence in the hospital and this required managerial backup.
Confidence in the hospital has been dented since the death over a week ago of nine-year-old Cootehill girl Frances Sheridan three weeks after she underwent an appendix operation.
She was recovering at home when last Friday week she experienced stomach pains and was brought back to the hospital. Staff said she probably only had a tummy bug and sent her home. She awoke two days later vomiting blood. An ambulance was called but she was dead before it arrived. Post-mortem results are awaited and the health board has begun an investigation.
Since then GPs in the area have expressed concern at the lack of continuity of care offered by the hospital's surgical department since the suspension last August of two of its three consultant surgeons over interpersonal difficulties.
Prof Tanner said yesterday it was very difficult to expect the surgical department and hospital to function "normally" when two of its three consultants were removed.
He said morale among staff at the hospital was now "desperately low" and the medical board of the hospital was very concerned at how negative publicity would affect their ability to deliver services.
Furthermore, Prof Tanner said it was his view that if this had been a large hospital with a large team of consultants working in line with structures outlined in the Hanly report, the removal of two consultants would not have had the same effect. "Our view in the college is if you could institute Hanly overnight in this country, you could deliver a better service.
"We are endowed with small hospitals with small staff so this has far reaching effects when some staff are removed," he said.