Madam, - Your front-page report of June 19th about underspending on capital health projects put a new perspective on problems in this HSE hospital. We have an eight-bed day-care unit. It is used by the gastro-enterology service, a three-consultant general surgical service, a urology service , a facio-maxillary surgical service, a three-consultant medical service and also for chronic pain control procedures by our department of anaesthetics.
The unit is so small that it is not possible to talk privately to a patient. And as for the notion that there should be a two-metre space between beds to minimise cross-infection, suffice it to say it is somewhat out of date. To have 25 patients pass through this eight-bed unit in a day is not unusual.
We need a 30-bed unit to allow our current workload to proceed unhindered. Some of my more cynical colleagues even suggest that the HSE, having identified the choking point which limits work in our service, is striving to maintain it so as to restrict the number of procedures (and patients). Given our situation, your report that €90 million was returned unspent to the Department of Finance confirms that I really do work for an organisation that could not organise a drinks party in a distillery.
- Yours, etc,
JOHN DOYLE FRCS, Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, Co Galway.