THE BOARD of Tallaght hospital met last night for the first time since last week’s X-ray debacle amid calls for its chairman to step down.
The 22-person board was due to consider its response to disclosures that 58,000 X-rays were never reviewed by consultant radiologists and thousands of GP letters were unopened at the hospital.
Tallaght GP and TCD public health specialist Prof Tom O’Dowd, who first raised concerns about the issues last April, has called on the board’s chairman, Lyndon MacCann, to consider his position following the disclosures.
Prof O’Dowd said he raised the issues in a letter to Mr MacCann but he never received a response.
His letter was stamped as having been received by the hospital on April 27th, 2009. Mr MacCann, a prominent senior counsel, has said he only learned of the correspondence for the first time last week.
Fianna Fáil junior minister Conor Lenihan has also said that changes to the management of Tallaght hospital are “urgently required”.
The board was also expected to consider last night the findings of an independent report on the operation of the hospital from Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The report, presented to the hospital board late last year, is understood to have recommended a much smaller senior management team and a smaller board.
Well-placed sources say the report showed that management at the hospital was large and inflexible and that clearer lines of accountability were needed.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said yesterday that he has been in contact with Minister for Health Mary Harney regarding the issue in recent days. He played down suggestions that Ms Harney had offered to return to Ireland from New Zealand – where she is representing the Government for St Patrick’s Day – to deal with issue.
Mr Cowen said he had only discussed what had emerged and how it was being handled and “making sure that everything possible was being done to achieve it”. Mr Cowen is visiting the US for St Patrick’s Day.
“I mean, there is nothing being done at the moment that wouldn’t be done,” he said. “Everything that can be done is being done in relation to this particular issue.”
He added that the Department of Health’s secretary general had met people from the Health Service Executive and the Health Information and Quality Authority to ensure any backlog of X-rays or letters was cleared as soon as possible.