The HSE today defended its decision to transfer emergency department services from the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital to Cork University Hospital and insisted that there will be no loss of emergency department capacity in Cork city.
Under the proposal first announced in November 2010 as part of a Reconfiguration of Hospital Services in Cork and Kerry, the emergency department at the South Infirmary Victoria will close and services will be transferred to CUH.
The plan also involves the transfer into the South Infirmary Victoria of elective orthopaedic services from St Mary's Orthopaedic Hospital in Gurranabraher which will become home to an urgent care centre which will cater for minor injuries such as lower limb fractures.
HSE area manager for Cork, Ger Reaney said the proposed changes followed extensive consultation by the HSE with staff working in various areas including orthopaedic surgery, emergency medicine as well as cardiac staff who have moved from the South to CUH.
Mr Reaney explained that the emergency department at the South Infirmary will reduce to a 12-hour service from December and the unit will close fully in April 2012 by which time CUH will be able to cater for the increase in emergency attendances.
According to Mr Reaney, there are currently just 5-7 people attending the emergency department at the South Infirmary Victoria per night during night time hours with the bulk of its 15,000 attendances in 2010 attending by day.
CUH currently has 48,000 attendances at its emergency department per year but has capacity to cater for 60,000 while the Mercy University Hospital will continue to operate a full 24-hour emergency department in 2012 which will continue to cater for 25,000 attendances.
According to Mr Reaney, there are currently some 88,000 attendances per annum at the city's three emergency departments and he expressed confidence that the reconfigured hospital system will have the capacity to cater for all of these.
He explained the new acute medical unit and the new medical assessment unit opening in December and surgical assessment unit opening in January at CUH are expected to reduce attendances at the hospital's emergency department by 11,000 -12,000.
Meanwhile the opening of the urgent care centre at St Mary's Orthopaedic is expected to cater for another 8,000 to 9,000 attendances per year, leading to a reduction of around 20,000 the numbers having to attend the emergency department at CUH, he said.
Mr Reaney said the full closure of the emergency department at the South Infirmary Victoria next April was being timed to ensure that all four of these ancilliary units are up and running so that there is sufficient capacity in the CUH emergency department.
South Infirmary Victoria Hospital chief executive Ger O'Callaghan said the transfer of elective surgery from St Mary's copperfastens the South as an elective hospital and will lead in time to a 100 per cent increase on theatre capacity from that currently used by orthopaedics in St Mary's.
Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan condemned the closure of the emergency department at the South Infirmary Victoria, saying it would "inevitably cost lives and make the already difficult situation at the CUH's emergency department intolerable".
"The closure of the South Vic emergency department and the transfer of orthopaedic services from St. Mary's is another nail in the coffin of Cork's public health system. It is purely a book-keeping decision which puts the lives of accident and emergency patients at risk," he said.