The chairperson of the HSE West’s regional health forum is calling for the health authority to fasttrack the appointment of a new manager for University Hospital Galway in the wake of the facility’s poor showing in the HSE’s latest league tables.
Cllr Padraig Conneely says the fact that the regional hospital continues to be among the worst performing in the country bears out what he has been saying all along.
“This news does not surprise me. I’ve been critical of hospital management in the past and I’ve said this hospital is not a centre of excellence. This is a big hospital which is managerless currently.”
UHG was given an unsatisfactory rating in the HealthStat system [which measures hospitals performances against other hospitals with a view to learning from the high scorers] especially in relation to orthopaedic outpatient waiting lists. Delays were as long as two years for hip, knee and back conditions - patients should wait no longer than three months to be seen at these clinics. One in three A&E patients had to wait from 12 to 24 hours before being admitted. People had to wait for more than a year to attend a general surgery clinic while children endured waiting times that were months longer than they should be.
Cllr Conneely says he cannot understand why a new manager has not been appointed to fill the position left vacant by Bridget Howley’s retirement in July.
“Noone has been appointed to the position. I’ve asked [the HSE] and they said they are in the process of doing it. I’ll be raising it again. How can you leave a hospital without a general manager? You need a general manager in a big hospital to make decisions and move forward. I don’t know why a new person has not been appointed. They advertised the job towards the end of September. Why did they not fill it? I’d urge them to do so. A hospital of such size and importance without a manager is crazy. No major decisions are going to be made by a person working in an acting capacity.”
The Fine Gael councillor is highly critical of the facility’s long out-patient waiting lists, saying it is “horrendous” for a public health system to operate like this.
“Last year I got figures which revealed there were 23,500 people on out-patient waiting lists, that is enough to fill Pearse Stadium [in Salthill]. Some were waiting for five years. Over Christmas and the New Year the numbers waiting in A&E were the highest ever. If this hospital were a private company it would be closed down, it would be gone into NAMA. There is a head in the sand attitude and patients are suffering. The greatest majority of cancellations seem to take place in the out-patients department. People are coming in from the country, from rural areas in Connemara and Mayo, only to be told their appointments are cancelled. By the time some of these people get off the waiting list and get an appointment they will be dead.”
The former mayor says once patients are admitted or treated they receive a good service.
“I admit when you do get in there for a procedure it is done well, the medical staff are good and you are treated well. Getting in is the problem. I’ve no gripe with frontline staff, only the way it is run.”
Noreen Muldoon, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s industrial relations officer in the west, says opening more hospital beds and lifting the ban on staff recruitment is the key to improving the health service and cutting waiting list times.
“People deserve to be treated with respect in a timely fashion and resources need to be put in place to achieve this. We are very aware in Galway that there are waiting lists of up to two years for orthopaedic cases. We are also aware there has been a closure of a very big number of orthopaedic beds - one 30 bed ward was closed over a year ago. Also, a day service on Hospital Ground [Merlin Park] is now closed too. This results in fewer patients having procedures done, which is unacceptable. You can’t possibly provide the same service with less resources.”
