THE HSE South yesterday published its plan for the reconfiguration of acute hospital services in Cork and Kerry which will see trauma cases from Cork treated at Cork University Hospital where 24-hour emergency services for the county will be centralised.
Under the “Reconfiguration Roadmap”, Kerry General Hospital will continue to provide a full range of acute services including a 24-hour emergency department for the people of Kerry but significant changes will take place among the five acute hospitals in Cork.
Cork University Hospital (CUH) will operate a 24-hour emergency department for victims of serious trauma such as car crashes along with a 24-hour surgical assessment unit and a 24-hour acute medical assessment unit for treatment of patients with complaints such as chest pain and headache.
A 24-hour urgent care centre will also be established at CUH to cater for patients with minor injuries such as suspected fractures and lacerations as part of the roadmap, which it is hoped to have fully implemented by the end of 2014.
The plan also proposes the transfer of some services from CUH to allow it become “an efficient tertiary specialist hospital” dealing with serious trauma, neurological and cancer cases that require inputs from multiple specialist services.
All cancer care will be concentrated at CUH where it is also planned to ultimately centralise all paediatric services for the region, Prof John Higgins, director of reconfiguration HSE South, explained at the launch of the report yesterday.
Under the plan, emergency department services at the Mercy University Hospital will be reduced from 24 hours to 12 hours a day while the hospital will also operate an urgent care centre on a 12-hour basis and an acute medical assessment unit.
The Mercy will also become the regional centre for elective general surgery, urology and vascular surgery while it will also provide an outreach 12-hour urgent care centre on the grounds of St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital in Gurranebraher on Cork’s northside.
Orthopaedic services will move next March from St Mary’s to the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, which will lose its emergency department but which will become an elective surgical hospital.
The South Infirmary Victoria should also become a regional centre for plastic surgery, ENT and ophthalmology as well as the location for the national cervical screening programme, the report recommends.
Mallow General Hospital will also lose its 24-hour emergency department but it will have a new 12-hour urgent care centre along with an acute medical assessment unit while an advanced team of paramedics will be set up there to deal with serious trauma cases.
Bantry General Hospital will also no longer have a 24-hour emergency department.