The Health Service Executive (HSE) has confirmed that ambulances will no longer take complex trauma patients to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan from this Friday.
Up to now, complex trauma patients requiring major surgical intervention were taken by ambulance to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan to be stabilised before being transferred to another hospital.
“This results in delays in patients getting to a hospital with the necessary clinical personnel and equipment,” according to a HSE statement.
However, the HSE has said following a review of Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan, that the resources necessary to provide acute major surgical and trauma services were not in place.
Dr Doiminic Ó Brannagáin, clinical director of the HSE in the northeast, said an initial longer ambulance journey to a better-staffed and equipped trauma unit was preferable to management in a smaller unit and two ambulance journeys.
"A recent meeting to review the provision of surgical services in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan considered it unsafe to continue this practice whereby ambulance borne trauma was brought to Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan," he said.
As a result, complex trauma patients will be taken directly by ambulance to hospital in Drogheda or another appropriate hospital.
Fine Gael Meath TD Damien English said: “The news that all trauma cases will drive by Our Lady’s Hospital Navan is a terrible blow to Meath and all its residents”.
“The Lourdes Hospital will not be able to cope with the increased numbers coming from Meath, which means lives will be put at risk,” Shane McEntee Fine Gael TD for Meath added.
Sinn Féin spokesman on health Caomhghín Ó Caoláin said the hospital in Navan was suffering a "death by stealth" in the same way as Monaghan's hospital.
“The decision to downgrade the emergency department in Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan is a further blow to hospital services in County Meath and in the northeast region generally. It will place yet more pressure on the dangerously overworked and overcrowded A&E department at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda," he said.