Management at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) in Cork and the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday expressed hope that a resolution will be reached soon on a dispute over staffing levels which has delayed the opening of the hospital's new €4 million accident and emergency department.
Construction work on the new A&E was completed last March but the facility has not yet opened with the MUH and HSE in dispute over the recruitment of additional staff for the facility which is designed to cater for 10,000 additional patients annually.
The MUH has argued that it needs an extra 25 staff including some 15 nursing staff to open the new facility which will cater for 34,000 patients annually compared with the 24,000 or so currently being treated in the hospital's existing accident and emergency department
Yesterday, a MUH spokesman said that discussions with the HSE were ongoing and both sides had agreed to an external evaluation of the nursing staff requirement for the new facility which should advance the issue.
"Our expectation would be that that evaluation will commence quite soon and hopefully we will be able to resolve the issues involved," said the spokesman who declined to be drawn on a definite opening date for the new facility.
A HSE spokeswoman said that HSE South hospital network manager Gerry O'Dwyer had met MUH management last week and a further meeting was scheduled for next week.
She said she also hoped the matter would be resolved shortly.
News of the progress in discussions comes after Minister for Health Mary Harney said that she was concerned that a new state-of-the-art accident and emergency department was lying idle and she urged both sides to work out a solution.
Questioned about the impasse, Ms Harney said that, unfortunately unlike when new schools were built and no issue was made regarding additional staff, the building of new healthcare facilities seemed to automatically trigger demands for more staff.
"I know that the hospital network manager here, Gerry O'Dwyer, is in discussion with the hospital.
"I'm not in a position to comment or not on whether the hospital has the appropriate level of staff, it's a matter for the HSE to determine," she said.
"It always worries me if buildings are left vacant . . . there is a duty on all of us to reform the system, not just on the Minister and the HSE, there is a duty on everyone who works in the health system to play their part in delivering better care and better facilities for patients," Ms Harney said.
Cork North Central Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen said the new unit had been ready for nine months and it was his information that it could still be another six months before it is open by the time the staffing issue has been resolved.
"That means this new unit will be lying idle for over a year," he said.
"It is serious mismanagement by Minister Harney and the HSE that they didn't undertake these negotiations with the Mercy while the unit was under construction - it's the public who end up suffering because of the delay," he said.