The number of patients treated at Letterkenny General Hospital increased by 10 per cent last year, according to the annual report of the North Western Health Board.
The report notes that a new day-services unit at Sligo General Hospital contributed to a 40 per cent increase in the number of day cases treated there in 2001. However, cancer patients in the region experienced difficulty in accessing radiotherapy services.
The health board became the first in the State to contract the services of a mobile cardiac catheterisation laboratory, according to the report.
The unit, which visits Sligo General Hospital four days a month, provides coronary angioplasty [a dye test], which doctors use to determine whether a patient with a heart condition requires bypass surgery or alternative treatment. By December 2001, 328 patients from the region had availed of the new facility.
"Prior to the initiation of this service at Sligo General Hospital, several hundred patients from the north-west were making the round trip to Dublin for this investigation on an annual basis," it says. Noting that all patients referred for coronary angioplasty are offered a further appointment, the report says the initiative represents a significant regional development in line with a recommendation in the Cardiovascular Health Strategy.
Cardiac patients requiring further treatment are referred to St James's Hospital in Dublin with the added benefit of "an immediate reduction in bed days required for patients waiting for a coronary angiography service".
A telelink service with St James's will be implemented later this year which will facilitate the electronic transmission of images directly to Dublin for an immediate specialist opinion.
In February 2001 the NWHB initiated a mobile magnetic resonance imaging [MRI scan] service for both general hospitals in the region. By the end of the year 1,150 scans had been carried out, which significantly reduced the need for patients to travel to Dublin. The report adds, however: "At present there are difficulties facilitating fee-paying patients because of the failure of the VHI to recognise this service, despite the fact that it is the only MRI service available in the north-west."
Patients with malignant disease experience difficulty in accessing radiotherapy services, it says.
"Only 10 per cent of patients from the NWHB area will receive radiotherapy treatment against the nationally recommended 50-60 per cent of all cancer patients."
The report recommends that Sligo-Leitrim patients continue to receive radiotherapy at St Luke's Hospital in Dublin until a new unit is commissioned at University College Hospital Galway in 2003, and that Donegal patients be treated at Belfast City Hospital.
It also notes: "In considering the development of this service, the board was strongly of the view that if patients were to have equal and timely access to services it is vital that such services be provided on a more local basis".
In a chapter on acute hospital activity levels, the report notes: there has been a continued increase in activity across acute services over the past five years, with 29,000 more treatments in 2001 compared to 1997.
a substantial shift from in- patient to day cases is evident. In Letterkenny General Hospital it is projected that for the first time total day-care activity will exceed in-patient numbers.
although there has been a slight increase in the number of patients waiting for admission, there has been a reduction in waiting times as both Sligo and Letterkenny hospitals work towards achieving national targets.
Following an additional allocation of waiting list funding, the board employed a consultant to provide endoscopy services. As a result, the numbers waiting for gastroscopy and colonoscopy dropped from 874 to 391 over two years.
Attendances at accident and emergency increased at both regional hospitals, with 1,305 extra people seen in Sligo compared to the previous year.