One of the State's leading children's hospitals is sending patients abroad for cardiac surgery due to a combination of staff shortages and inadequate theatre facilities.
Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, hopes, however, to be able to reverse this trend within six months when staff recruited abroad, both in the UK and the Philippines, take up their posts. Work is also expected to begin on the construction of additional hospital theatres in March.
Mr Paul Kavanagh, the hospital's chief executive, said the hospital had vacancies for 40 nurses, mostly specialists.
"We have tried nonetheless to protect our cardiac surgery programme. Instead of leaving children on waiting lists, it was decided to open up to them the option of travelling to the UK for surgery," he said.
"It is possible that we will also be shortly sending a small number to Baltimore in the US for treatment," he added.
Mr Kavanagh confirmed that the hospital expected to send 74 patients abroad for surgery this year.
"For the coming year we hope to carry out up to 300 cardiac surgery procedures at the hospital and up to 100 abroad if nothing changes. But we expect there will be a substantial shift to having surgery carried out at home when our new staff arrive," he said.
St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny has reallocated beds from various specialities to general use to cope with the increased demand in winter. They include four of the 14 gynaecological beds at the hospital.
These beds were operating at 68 per cent capacity and would be restored to gynaecology when the winter demand eased off, a spokeswoman for the South Eastern Health Board said.
She said the health board could not justify treating people in beds in corridors while there were empty beds in the wards.
The Cavan-Monaghan hospital group says that while it has been experiencing difficulty recruiting nurses, "with the good will of nursing personnel, all services are and have been fully functioning".
Meanwhile, a new semi-permanent theatre will be in service at Monaghan General Hospital by January 26th. It follows an assessment of theatre facilities at the hospital by a London consultancy which concluded that operations at the hospital were being conducted in an "inadequate and unsafe" environment.
Patients at Dublin's Mater Hospital could be sent to St Bricin's Military Hospital, Dublin, if arrangements can be made between the Eastern Regional Health Authority and the Department of Defence.
The Mater says that, if allowed, it would use part of St Bricin's as a "step-down" facility to which patients could be sent who no longer needed a high level of acute care. The ERHA is currently considering the matter.
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