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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Hospital to lose 24/7 emergency services
24-HOUR EMERGENCY services will not be retained at Wexford General Hospital following the publication of a review into acute hospital services in the south east, the HSE has confirmed.
“Currently each of the four hospitals in the South East provides 24-hour health services to small populations. Such hospitals cannot continue to provide the full range of 24-hour emergency services safely.
“Even with the expected growth in population over the next 10 to 15 years, we cannot safely provide every service and full emergency cover in each of the hospitals. With the soon-to-be-implemented European Working Time Directive, (limiting the number of hours doctors can work), we will not be in a position to provide 24-hour on-call services in a number of specialties,” was the statement in a newsletter, released this week to staff in each of the four hospitals. The Echo last week published documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, which suggested the HSE was using the reconfiguration of services in the midwest of the country, and the removal 24-hour accident and emergency services at Ennis General Hospital, as a best-practice template for the current review of acute hospital services in the south east. According to this week’s newsletter, current services in all four hospitals in the south east will soon “fundamentally change”.
The HSE has denied that the removal of 24hour A&E services amounts to a downgrading of local hospitals and said its concern was patient safety.
Backing up what the Echo published last week, the HSE has also conceded that overtime costs, for junior doctors, are not sustainable especially when junior doctors, whose heavy workloads keep many hospitals’ acute service afloat, will soon be precluded from working over 48 hours a week.
“This isn’t just about saving money. This is about using the money we have more effectively, not about cutting budgets. Medical overtime costs €15 million across the four hospitals.
“This money could be used more effectively to reduce waiting lists and to improve access to services.
A euro wasted is a euro denied to sick patients,” said the statement. The HSE has also moved to allay fears that staff will be made redundant when services are changed.
“This process is not about redundancies; it is about providing better and safer patient care in all hospitals’ in the region.
For some staff in each of the hospitals there may be changes. However, if there are changes, career support will be available and re-skilling of certain staff where appropriate,” it said.
The report, of the review body into the configuration of acute hospital services in the south east, will be published at the end of April.
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