The statement was issued by the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin Incorporating the National Children’s Hospital (Tallaght) last night
A report presented to the clinical governance committee of the hospital on November 26th, 2009, indicated that there were 700 X-ray cases of concern and that the issue was being resolved.
Following this meeting, the chief executive designate of Tallaght hospital, Prof Kevin Conlon was not satisfied with this and asked for a full report.
On taking up his appointment some weeks later (December 14th) he received a report indicating that there were 57,921 unreported X-rays. This has proved since to be the correct number.
There is no record of this issue being raised at the medical board of the hospital.
The backlog in radiology was raised at the board of the hospital in May 2009 but the full extent of the problem was not clear until the new chief executive designate took up his appointment in December 2009.
The chairman of the hospital Lyndon MacCann said: “I learnt this afternoon that Dr TC O’Dowd wrote a letter on April 22nd, 2009, expressing his concerns.
“The letter was addressed to me at the hospital and has been stamped as “received” by the chief executive’s office, April 27th, 2009. I had not known of this letter until today .”
Since December 2009, the chief executive designate has engaged with the Health Service Executive and the Health Information Quality Authority on the issue of the backlog of radiological reports.
It had always been the intention of the hospital that a comprehensive process review would be undertaken once the backlog was cleared.