A full audit of maternity units is now being completed for the Health Service Executive to ensure there is no repeat of the high rate of hysterectomies at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Minister for Health Mary Harney confirmed yesterday.
Ms Harney's comments came a day after the judge who inquired into the unusually high rate of Caesarean hysterectomies at the hospital expressed concern that her recommendations were not being followed up by the HSE.
Judge Maureen Harding Clark said on Wednesday that midwives and consultants had embraced many of her recommendations but "there has been no follow through from the HSE regional management". She also questioned how people with a basic education in the HSE, who had worked their way up through the clerical ranks, had the power to stop a "brilliant idea".
Ms Harney said that since the judge's report was published "enormous work has been done" to put in place an executive management team at the hospital.
Tom Finn, of the HSE's National Hospitals Office, stressed some of the recommendations had been implemented already, with more at an advanced stage, including the establishment of an executive management board. He said this board would hold its first meeting in coming weeks.
"This is a complicated process and it is imperative that we get it right," he said.
Meanwhile in response to Judge Harding Clark's questioning of how people in the HSE, who might only have a basic level education, could scupper bright ideas, Ms Harney said "you can't always associate academic qualifications with excellence".
"But clearly with the health services more and more people are pursuing ongoing training and education and that has to be the norm for the future for professionals and for those in management . . . and I'm very impressed by the number of staff in my own department that are pursuing third- and fourth-level education at the moment," she said.