SENIOR HOSPITAL doctors in the midwest had been trying to get the Health Service Executive to put in place safe arrangements for swift inter-hospital transfers of critically ill patients for years but their pleas were ignored, it was claimed yesterday.
Dr Christine O’Malley, a consultant geriatrician at Nenagh General Hospital, said she had “walked off the job” two years ago in distress at difficulties trying to transfer seriously ill patients from Nenagh to Limerick Regional Hospital. Action was not taken until the Health Information and Quality Authority began investigating Ennis hospital, it was claimed.
A HSE spokesman declined to discuss the details of the allegation other than saying it was not the first time Dr O’Malley had made this claim. “We see little point in jumping through the hoops repeating ourselves each time she chooses to resurrect these allegations,” he added.
The difficulties arose because consultants had to ring the main switchboard in Limerick hospital to try and find out which consultant was on-call to discuss with them a patient’s transfer. The administrative systems to identify the on-call consultant and locate them were often inadequate and even when a transfer was agreed a bed manager could state there were no beds in Limerick for the patient. Even if there were beds the seriously ill patient could be hours waiting for an ambulance to take them to Limerick.
Only last month Dr O’Malley said a seriously ill patient with a heart condition waited four hours for an “urgently requested” ambulance to take them from her hospital to Limerick. She said doctors had raised these concerns with the HSE for years but their views were seen as irrelevant.
But when the authority uncovered these difficulties at Ennis hospital in January it wrote to HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm recommending they be immediately addressed as they had “the potential to pose serious risks to the health and welfare” of patients. The HSE then responded and a protocol for inter-hospital transfers was drawn up which came into effect on April 6th.
Dr O’Malley said doctors trying to transfer patients still have to ring the main switchboard in Limerick to locate the on-call consultant.
The manager of Ennis hospital John Doyle has confirmed the HSE will invest €15 million over the next 12 months to increase bed capacity at Ennis hospital.
The chair of the Clare branch of the Irish College of General Practitioners, Dr Michael Harty, said he would be very uncertain about this promise given the HSE’s past record of announcing plans for Ennis and not following through.