A family doctor in the north-east claimed yesterday she would rather send a patient to a veterinary surgeon than for an operation at Cavan General Hospital.
The comments by Dr Mary Grehan, a GP in Dundalk, came following a report in The Irish Times yesterday that an elderly male patient had to be transferred from Cavan hospital to Dublin's Beaumont Hospital last week after complications set in when he was operated on in Cavan.
There have been several adverse critical incidents at the Cavan surgery unit since two of its permanent consultant surgeons were suspended over a year ago.
Dr Grehan told RTÉ News that after all that had happened Cavan wasn't a hospital she had a lot of confidence in. She said she'd sooner send patients "to a veterinary hospital than to Cavan. Sometimes you actually have to say these sort of things to actually make people listen." Dr Grehan, who is involved in setting up a private hospital in Dundalk, said she recommended to some patients that they go to the North for treatment rather than the north-east region, where she claimed services were "imploding".