Pressure on Government to justify unit closure

FINE Gael was expected today (Wednesday) to exert maximum pressure on the Government to justify the closure of the orthopaedic unit at Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, in the month of December, delaying up to 200 operations.

The political pressure is expected to be kept up in the coming weeks, with a planned meeting of the regional health forum about to be scheduled. FG said they would be relentless in their opposition to the cutbacks.

FG TD Damien English said that the unit served 400,000 people in the north-east and that its closure demolished the Government's denials about damage to frontline patient care.

"Patients all over the north-east will see their operations cancelled and next year's waiting list for surgery and for an initial consultant appointment will grow as the December patients are added on. HSE figures show that 260 adults and children are on surgical waiting lists as things stand so that figure could be set to double," he said.

He said that the "blinkered denials" of the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach that the cutbacks would not harm patient services "is undermined once again". Their defence of the actions of the HSE had crumbled and it was high time that they ensured that any necessary cost cutting was targeted at unnecessary bureaucracy and not at the frontline which actually delivered patient care, he said.

The HSE had said last Friday that only six patients would have their operations delayed by the planned December cutbacks. However, Chris Lyons, hospital network manager, admitted on LMFM radio that between 150 and 200 patients could have their operations put back.

Colr Ann Dillon Gallagher, a member of the regional health forum, had called for an urgent meeting of the forum to discuss the HSE announcement. Deputy English said yesterday (Tuesday) that Colr Dillon Gallagher had been speaking to the chairman of the forum and he had indicated that a meeting could be called. Mr Lyons has also indicated that he would have no problem meeting members of the forum to discuss the orthopaedic issue.

As the controversy continued over the weekend, Minister of State Mary Wallace said that she had been told by the HSE that, every year, before, during and after Christmas, there was a reduction in demand for elective orthopaedic services (such as hip replacements) at Our Lady's Hospital, and that last year, the orthopaedic unit had closed completely.

She had been told, she said, that only six patients had had procedures booked for December this year and that they would now be given alternative appointments for January 2008.

Patients suffering fractures or trauma, as well as day cases and those with outpatients' appointments, would continue to be treated during December.

Ms Wallace said that, in fact, the orthopaedic unit in Navan was ahead of targets for procedures in 2007.

Donal Duffy, assistant secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, said that the HSE's justification for the closure in December was "dishonest".

The claim that only six patients would be affected was untrue, the organisation claimed. "The unit was closed last year for refurbishment but the average throughput for that unit in a three-week period is about 150 patients," he said.