Minister rejects misleading data claim on hospital mortality rates

MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has rejected claims that he used misleading figures about mortality rates at Roscommon County Hospital to support the Coalition’s decision to downgrade the hospital’s A&E unit.

The Roscommon Hospital Action Committee made the accusation yesterday after obtaining figures which, it said, showed the death rate at Roscommon was in line with other hospitals.

Figures from the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) system, compiled for the Health Service Executive by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), showed a mortality rate of between 3.5 per cent and 6 per cent at the hospital over the last three years.

Of 428 admissions in 2010, 23 died (5.3 per cent) and six of the deaths were related to coronary problems. To June 30th, 228 people were admitted, eight died and one of those was coronary related.

The committee said these mortality rates were significantly lower than those described by Dr Reilly last week to the Dáil.

The Minister had said that cardiac patients attending Roscommon hospital (at 21.3 per cent) had four times the mortality rate of those admitted to Galway University Hospital (at 5.8 per cent).

He said the difference between the two was not the fault of the doctors in Roscommon hospital, but rather a reflection of the fact that the skills and back-up were not present there.

The A&E department at Roscommon hospital closed at 8am on Monday and was replaced with a minor injuries unit for adults only. Emergency cases are being moved on to Galway, Sligo and Mayo.

Roscommon Hospital Action Committee chairman John McDermott said Senator John Crown, a hospital consultant, had verified the figures and was happy that at worst Roscommon hospital had the same coronary death rate as Galway hospital.

“It brings into question the research on which Minister Reilly is basing the whole hospital reconfiguration programme,” Mr McDermott said.

A spokesman for Dr Reilly said the cardiac mortality rate at Roscommon hospital was utterly separate from the decision to close the A&E unit, which had been taken in advance of the figures being compiled.

He said the decision was based on two reports by the Health Information and Quality Authority, one from 2009 and one from April of this year and that the figures being quoted by the Roscommon action committee did not compare like with like.

He said the Department of Health had analysed inquiry data from Roscommon hospital over the last three years and that the numbers quoted by Dr Reilly related to samples of 100 people presenting with heart attacks.

He said they showed that 21.3 per cent of these patients died at Roscommon compared to 5.8 per cent in Galway, but the numbers quoted by the committee looked at overall mortality rates.