Just what has been going at Drogheda hospital?

Since more and more Meath people are having to use the services of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, due in part to the rundown in services at Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, it is pertinent to ask just what is going on at that hospital. The Lourdes is a major teaching hospital, part of the Louth-Meath Hospital Group which includes the Navan hospital and the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk. It provides acute medical and surgical services as well as maternity services to the catchment area of Louth, Meath and the surrounding hinterland including parts of North County Dublin. Despite the hard work and dedication by many of its staff, this hospital continues to be beset by scandals and shortcomings of one kind or another. If nothing else, these events are bound to create unease among its many potential patients irrespective of where they live. A number of scandals stand out. One of its prominent consultants, Dr Michael Neary, was struck off the Medical Register. He carried out 129 out of a total of 188 peripartum hysterectomies at the Lourdes between 1974 and 1996 when most obstetricians would carry out less than 10 in their whole career. Another consultant, Michael Shine, was struck off the Medical Register in 2008 following complaints by patients that he sexually assaulted them. In the Neary case, Judge Maureen Harding Clark, who drew up a report on the scandal, said: "Dr Neary's fall from grace is not a simple story of an evil man or a bad doctor, not is it a story of wholesale suppression of facts ... it is not the story of a surgeon who poor surgical skills or a doctor deficient in academic excellence ... it is the story of a doctor who, at critical points during his training was inadequately supervised". The question of adequate supervision also arises in the case of the death of a 31-year-old Monaghan woman, Sharon McEneaney, who died following a delayed diagnosis. She had a cancerous tumour in her abdomen and died in April 2009. She had first gone to the Drogheda hospital's emergency department in October 2007 with abdominal pain, having previously been diagnosed with neurofibromatosis, a condition which elevated her risk of developing a tumour. On 7th November, following a third visit to the Lourdes, she was admitted. A scan revealed a mass. A consultant obstetric gynaecologist Dr Etop Samson Akpan recommended she be discharged and readmitted for exploratory surgery within two weeks. She was finally readmitted on 19th December. When the surgeon operated on her he found a large mass. A surgical team specialist said a biopsy should not be carried out due to the risk of bleeding. He recommended a CT scan and a "radiologically guided" biopsy. A CT scan was not done until 24th January 2008, and Ms McEneaney returned to Dr Akpan on 13th February. The surgeon said he left a note on her chart to refer her for a biopsy but it did not take place. Instead, on 3rd April she was given another ultrasound. She was only given a biopsy following the intervention of former TD Dr Rory O'Hanlon in late June 2008. She was treated for cancer in July but died the following year. A HSE report into the affair said that the Lourdes "completely failed" Ms McEneaney. It added that the review panel was "very concerned" that, after reports into other adverse events at the hospital", the delayed diagnosis of Ms McEneaney had occurred. The reviewers found that Dr Akpan was "caring, hard-working, compassionate and reflective" but "major concerns arose regarding his administration and organisational skills possibly compounded by workload, cross-site clinical commitments and in-hospital clerical support". It said that his follow through was "lacking". We do not know whether an earlier diagnosis of Ms McEneaney's illness might have improved her quality of life, or prevented her death. However, she deserved better treatment than she got. In this case, the HSE investigated itself. The Minister for Health James Reilly announced recently that in changes he envisages for the health service he will bring back control of the HSE to the Department of Health. If that means greater accountability through the Dail, that will be no bad thing. The sooner the better.