Board discusses crisis at Peamount Hospital

An extraordinary meeting of the board of Peamount Hospital took place last night to discuss the ongoing crisis at its TB unit…

An extraordinary meeting of the board of Peamount Hospital took place last night to discuss the ongoing crisis at its TB unit.

The meeting followed a threat by one board member to resign and a statement from another expressing a lack of confidence in hospital management.

Mr Joe Moran, a former chairman of Peamount Hospital and a board member for 29 years, said he had misgivings about the board's decision to make the hospital's medical director, Prof Luke Clancy, redundant.

"There is a complete lack of insight and disregard for medical opinion on the part of hospital management in closing down the TB unit with such rapidity and without alternative arrangements being put in place," he said.

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A full hearing into the circumstances surrounding Prof Clancy's redundancy is due to begin in the High Court on Monday.

Meanwhile, at the IMO AGM in Killarney, Dr Fenton Howell, a specialist in public health medicine, said: "The current controversy in Peamount is inappropriate."

"As there is growing concern about the development of multi-drug resistant TB we need to be very careful before making radical changes to our TB services," he added.