The North Eastern Health Board should accept full blame for the depletion of services at Monaghan Hospital which resulted in Ms Denise Livingstone being refused admission over a week ago, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association has said.
Its secretary general, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said yesterday the hospital had gradually been "strangled" by the health board, which suspended maternity services over a year ago. In addition, full accident and emergency services have been discontinued, he said, with patients being expected to travel instead to Cavan General Hospital 25 miles away.
Mr Fitzpatrick said the NEHB was blaming Comhairle na nOspidéal, the Institute of Gynaecologists and other agencies for the fact that services were scaled down "rather than taking the blame themselves which is where the blame lies".
His comments followed the publication of a highly critical report on Friday into the treatment provided to Ms Livingstone and the subsequent death of her premature baby. He accused the health board's senior management of failing to show leadership. Their actions had resulted in low staff morale, he claimed.
"When you ask them what their plans for Monaghan are they will say it will play a key role in the Monaghan/Cavan hospital group. When you ask what that means, will it be a 24-hour hospital, you get the same answer, that it will play a key role. This sort of evasiveness is so destructive to the morale of staff in the hospital.
"We believe if the health board was up-front and stated what its policy was, at least they would be showing leadership, whereas at the moment they are simply stumbling from one crisis to another and the people of north Monaghan are being deceived," he said..
"We have very little confidence in the senior management team of the NEHB to show the necessary leadership and determination to solve the problems of hospital services in the north-east," he added.
The Irish Nurses Organisation's industrial relations officer, Ms Patsy Doyle, welcomed the independent report carried out into the death of baby Bronagh Livingstone but criticised the NEHB's report into the same incident as being "entirely subjective".
She said the INO would be seeking a meeting early in January with Mr Kevin Bonnar, the management consultant appointed by the Minister for Health to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the independent review.
Opposition TDs say the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, must share the blame for what occurred in Monaghan. Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said he could not evade his share of responsibility "for the poor management and decision making" reflected in the independent review.
"When the maternity unit in Monaghan was closed the Minister should have ensured that proper emergency cover and transport back up was in place to deal with an emergency such as this, as would have been the case in virtually every other European country," she said.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said she blamed Mr Martin for not making it clear to the public and staff in the health service where specialities would be concentrated. These were "hard political decisions" which he was not taking. "Instead he is allowing it to happen by stealth by running down hospitals," she said. "I'm not asking him to resign but I am asking him to do his job by showing leadership and by making the hard political decisions that need to be made," she added.
The health board suspended maternity services at Monaghan Hospital as a result of insurance cover being withdrawn.