Patients will be ultimate losers as HSE axe falls

The Save Navan Hospital Campaign has signalled that it is gearing up for a winter of protests and mass rallies as a series of major cuts to services in the cash-strapped Louth-Meath Hospital Group were announced by the Health Service Executive (HSE) this week. Some 50 beds are to close in the group's three hospitals in an effort to reduce an overspend in the region, now heading towards a deficit of €20 million. Twenty-four beds will be taken out of commission at the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk and 16 beds are to close temporarily at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. Nine will close at Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, in addition to one critical care bed. All agency staff and overtime is to be cut and some operating theatres will remain closed for longer to increase savings. Hospital campaigners and staff unions have reacted with fury with the confirmation of the news that had been widely reported in the last month, but the HSE has insisted the cuts are necessary to ensure services can be maintained at the three the hospitals in both counties. Angry opponents claims the moves will create serious risks to patient care in the region. In particular, the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (INMO) believes the removal of overtime and agency staff will have a dramatic impact on patient care as the majority of this agency and overtime is used to cover staffing deficits that exist as a result of the non-filling of posts due to the staffing moratorium. The organisation said it is totally opposed to any measures that puts lives at risk and exacerbates emergency department overcrowding, lengthens waiting lists and reduces the quality of care provided. It said services in the north-east are already grossly understaffed and the removal of agency and overtime, which is required to maintain safe services, will have a severe and profound impact upon the ability of staff to provide quality care to patients. What will be of particular concern is the parallel the INMO has drawn with what occurred at the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital in the UK where management there took decisions to reduce staffing levels, when they were already understaffed, to meet financial objectives. The union said this resulted in the provision of grossly inadequate care and the deaths of patients. It said management in the Louth/Meath Hospital Group are about to reduce staffing levels when the services are already understaffed and added this will, without doubt, have dramatic consequences. The INMO added that the environment here is identical to Staffordshire, the management strategy similar and, as proven by the Health Commission Report into Mid-Staffordshire, the only losers would be the sick and the vulnerable. In a clear warning to the HSE, the Save Navan Hospital campaign has added its voice to the controversy, saying such cutbacks represent a clear threat to patient safety and potentially put lives at risk. It said it will continue to publicly and vigorously resist the HSE's plans and has pledged to fight for the full retention of all services in Navan until a new regional hospital is built. The group has called on the Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, to immediately intervene to reverse the downgrading. The campaign has pledged to escalate its protests in the face of these new cuts and plans to organise public meetings, protests and mass rallies in defence of Our Lady's Hospital. Its members clearly believe they must once again take to the streets to force the government and the HSE to back down. Many health professionals in this county are of the view that a complete ban on agency staff and overtime in local hospitals from later this year will have a severe impact on patient care - and lives could well be put at risk. The HSE has been too reliant on agency staff and overtime up to now to cover the big gaps in frontline staffing. To make such dramatic and sudden cut in such a short timeframe while a recruitment ban remains in place is what is causing the most concern. The scale of the crisis facing the HSE to protect the continued viability of the range of services currently provided to the local population is indeed daunting, but there is now a real fear that patients will suffer because of this move. There is no doubt that staffing reductions will have a dramatic impact - coupled with the closure of beds - which will increase the pressure on patients and staff in a group of hospitals which are already both over-stretched and under-resourced.