Full-time child surgery post unfilled for decade

Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children:A full-time consultant post to provide surgery for children has been unfilled for about a decade because of disagreement between paediatric hospitals in Dublin over how it should be structured, the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children heard yesterday.

Tommie Martin, national director of the office of the chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), said the filling of the consultant paediatric surgeon post was "a unique situation". He said there had been significant differences between hospitals on how the post should be organised. HSE assistant national director Fionnuala Duffy said the agency was working with the hospitals concerned and progress had been made. The post has been filled for some time in a temporary capacity.

Progressive Democrats TD Fiona O'Malley said the situation was not good enough.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey maintained that consultants were being appointed to hospitals without any facilities being provided to allow them to do their work.

He said he knew of a consultant surgeon who had been appointed to a hospital who only had access to theatre to carry out operations during the night.

Dr Twomey said eventually the surgeon was given a half-day access to theatre.

He also maintained that a consultant cardiologist had been appointed in the southeast who had been unable to carry out angiograms as there was no Cat lab in the hospital where such procedures were performed. He said patients still had to travel to Dublin for such procedures.

Ms Duffy said a Cat lab had been authorised recently for the hospital in the southeast.

Mr Martin said he would be surprised to hear about the case regarding the consultant surgeon but that sometimes there was a "chicken and egg" situation where facilities were not available until a consultant was in place "to drive them on".