Board and staff to meet to discuss emergency protocols

Amid reports of "huge levels of distrust" between staff at Monaghan General Hospital and North Eastern Health Board management meetings are expected to take place today to discuss and reiterate emergency protocols.

A spokeswoman for the board said that, given the late stage on Friday when the independent report on the Livingstone case was issued, it would have been difficult to organise meetings over the weekend. "But it is expected that meetings will be held or planned for tomorrow," she said last night.

A special meeting of the board will be held on January 7th to discuss the implications of the report into the Bronagh Livingstone case by the independent review panel.

Among the recommendations are that there should be a fundamental review of the protocol for emergency obstetric cases and that its implementation "should include a joint meeting to discuss its operation with involved multidisciplinary staff at each facility".

Mr Paudge Connolly, Independent TD, who has been in touch with staff since both the NEHB and independent reports were published, said they felt they had been "hung out to dry".

"There is a very evident break down in trust between the staff and the board," he said and he called on the chief executive officer of the board, Mr Paul Robinson, to accept the resignation of the medical adviser to the board, Mr Finbar Lennon.

Mr Peadar McMahon, spokesman for the Monaghan Hospital Alliance, agreed, saying there was no confidence among staff or the public in the management skills of the people in charge of the board.

"I would think it was time for Paul Robinson to accept Finbar Lennon's resignation and to then do the honourable thing and leave," he said.The levels of distrust were so high that a new CEO was necessary if trust was to begin to be rebuilt.

The community was in total support of the hospital staff who tended to Ms Livingstone when she presented in an advanced stage of labour last week.

"There is a feeling they were put in an impossible position. The protocols were totally unclear. There were no dry-runs, no reiteration of the protocols.

"The staff were so low in confidence that they were effectively unable to make the decisions that might have in the end had the same outcome."

This, said Mr McMahon, was an indictment of the CEO and the board, that they were not taking steps to increase morale and confidence and to ensure that skills were being maintained. Qualified midwives at the hospital, he continued, had been unable to use their skills since maternity services were withdrawn in July 2001.

Mr Alphonsus Kennedy, consultant obstetrician-gynaecologist at Monaghan Hospital who has been unable to practise obstetrics since last year, welcomed the recommendation that a "flying squad" be established to provide back-up in emergency cases.

He said there had been one when he began working at Monaghan in the 1970s which was "quietly put in the dustbin in the 1980s". He had called on numerous occasions for its revival but had been ignored.

Dr Ilona Duffy, a local GP and hospital campaigner, said: "Paul Robinson has to go. It is so clear the protocols were not sufficient."

There was not wide consultation on the development of the protocol, she said, adding that numerous staff had raised concerns about their inadequacy.