A statement issued by the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine on Tuesday highlighted the curtailing or closure of the emergency departments in a number of nationwide hospitals and listed Mayo General Hospital as one which has an “acute” problem. However the HSE has said it is trying to address the issue.
According to the statement the IAEM claims that there are severe difficulties in Ireland’s emergency departments in recruiting non-consultant hospital doctors to staff them, with some EDs consistently unable to fill shifts with doctors of the necessary experience to safely manage patients. Mayo General Hospital is listed as one where there is a major problem and the IAEM feels that it may now be necessary for hospitals that cannot safely staff their EDs to close or limit their opening hours, with arrangements to be put in place to transfer patients elsewhere outside these hours.
The IAEM has said that with changes in registration and training post recognition due to take effect on July 1 2010, the situation is likely to deteriorate significantly and it has urged the HSE to decide where it is going to provide 24 hour safe ED services.
When contacted by the Mayo Advertiser, a HSE spokesperson said that the organisation “is fully aware of the staffing situations in hospital emergency departments”, and “a recruitment drive for a new intake of non-consultant hospital doctors is under way with a number of other initiatives being considered to specifically address the situation to ensure that hospital EDs continue to offer a high level of care to all patients”.
The spokesperson concluded that the HSE is “putting in place a number of processes to address the issues presenting on a short, medium, and long-term basis.”
Castlebar Mayor, Cllr Michael Kilcoyne told the Mayo Advertiser that he believes that closing the A&E department in Mayo general is part of a plan to downgrade Mayo General. “I said this last year, that the accident and emergency department in Mayo General would be closed at 8pm, and now the people who are working there are saying it as well. This is very serious somebody is going to die because of it. This is going to happen and it’s being presided over by people who don’t seem to give a damn. What happens in the middle of the night if someone needs to go to the A&E deparment if they get hurt, there going to have to travel up to and over a hundread miles in places to get to either Sligo or Galway”
This news follows on from the news last week that €9 million in cuts is being sought in Mayo General Hospital to stay in budget. As part of cost savings to it is understood that a dedicated male surgical ward will be gotten rid of cutting the number of male in patient beds from 33 to 16, there are also fears that cuts will be made to the numbers of beds in general female and surgical wards at Mayo General to cut costs further. The budget for Mayo General Hospital was cut from €87.5 million to €77 million earlier this year by the HSE.
Cllr Kilcoyne greatly fears for the future of the hospital with this news as he told the Mayo Advertiser. “I’m of the view that in five or six years Mayo General will be nothing more than a glorified nursing home. The powers that be seem intent on creating two hospitals in the west, one in Sligo and one in Galway and if your stuck in the middle tough. I don’t know what our Government TDs are doing about it there not doing enough, they may say their working from within on it, but when working from within doesn’t seem to work maybe it’s time to start working from the outside.” Mayor Kilcoyne went on to say that, “There are people going to loose their jobs because of these cuts too, from what I know all the temporary nurses in the hospital will be cut to 16 hours a week and those who are off sick or retiring won’t be replaced. It’s putting peoples lives in danger and it’s just not good enough for the people of Mayo to have to put up with it.”
