People around Mayo were gripped in a hysterical frenzy during the week when it emerged that Mayo General Hospital performed the worst out of 29 hospitals surveyed under a new HSE monitoring system. Outrage was the order of the day. They were ringing local radio with horror stories of relatives waiting hours on trolleys.
But now is not the time to get hysterical and start pointing fingers, and it was good to see those who had good experiences share them in a show of support for our local hospital, it’s staff, and their endeavours.
The HSE was quick to remind the public this week that the survey is no refection on patient care and patient outcomes. It was technical in its terms of reference with the ambition to inform hospital mangers and staff where their success lie and where they need to make improvements.
And vast improvements are what’s needed in Mayo, particularly when it comes to access to the hospital through A&E. Hospital manger Tony Canavan has to be commended for the forthright way he has accepted the HealthStat findings.
While Mayo councillors who are members of the HSE West regional health forum were anxious to debate the report at Tuesday’s HSE meeting in Merlin Park, democracy prevailed and after a vote of 11 supporting the debate and 14 voting against it, it was decided to wait until their next meeting on May 12 to discuss the findings.
In hindsight this was probably the best idea as the members didn’t have a copy of the report in front of them and were relying on newspaper articles to inform their opinions although at the time, in the height of the frenzy, members of the media would have welcomed a debate.
The director of the regional health office Dr Séan Conroy, a man who shows much restraint when debates get heated and one who seems to be very measured and realistic, tried to briefly discuss the survey in the context of how it was intended.
He said it was not a “damning indictment” on any hospital, as claimed by the Mayor of Galway. And he made a very valid point that the bar was set very high by the HSE so hospitals would have something to strive towards in the future. If every hospital had obtained the best result — a green light — this would not have been a realistic outcome. But now managers and staff know where improvements must be made and they can use the information supplied in the report to help them implement change where change is required.
Now is not the time for hysteria. But if in three months’ time when three monthly HealthStat reports have been published and we don’t seen any improvements at Mayo General Hospital, serious questions will have to be answered. Tony Canavan admitted he was the man responsible and answerable for the hospital, so let’s wait until May to see how he responds to this week’s dismal findings.
Systems, not staff, are the problem, was the clear feeling of many of the members of the HSE West forum this week who couldn’t laud any more praise on health care staff. But the systems they are forced to use aren’t always the most efficient it seems. While it is great to see the HSE monitoring itself on a monthly basis now, the situation still remains that the bureaucratic nightmare that is the HSE needs a complete overhaul and until that is done the resources that are allocated to its running will never realise the outcomes that were intended.
