Politics and the local elections are at the heart of the current debate on whether A&E services will be retained or not at hospitals in Nenagh and Ennis, the businessman who chaired the Hanly task force has told The Irish Times.
Mr David Hanly said he didn't want to get drawn into the "politics" of how his report was being implemented. However, he added "I think you will find a lot of what is going on here is very political in the context of the June elections and it's certainly something I'm not going to get involved in."
Mr Hanly's controversial report on hospital reorganisation recommended that local hospitals like those in Ennis and Nenagh have their A&E units replaced by nurse-led minor injury units with limited opening hours.
When contacted by The Irish Times for a reaction to the comments of the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, that the A&Es at both hospitals would continue to remain open on a 24-hour basis, Mr Hanly said he had not spoken to Mr Martin for a number of weeks and couldn't comment on what the Minister was alleged to have said when he hadn't heard it first hand.
He added: "It would be wrong for me to get involved in the politics of this at all."
Mr Martin's visit to Nenagh General Hospital yesterday came within days of his visit to Ennis General, both of which were earmarked to have their A&E units replaced by nurse-led units in the first phase of the implementation of the report.
He said Nenagh's A&E would not close and "emergency care physicians" would shortly be recruited by the Mid Western Health Board to staff the Nenagh and Ennis units around the clock.
The local hospital action groups are not convinced, however, that this equates with them continuing to have full A&E services, for which they have been campaigning and for which thousands turned out at protest marches late last year.
In a joint statement issued following their meeting with Mr Martin, they said the appointment of physicians to the A&E departments of both hospitals, was "merely a smokescreen cynically generated to lull the public into believing that the Government has climbed down on the Hanly recommendations and that services will not be cut." They said they would be stepping up their campaign to save full A&E and acute services at their hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation has expressed serious concern at the advertisements placed by the Mid Western Health Board to recruit emergency care physicians for both hospitals. In a letter to the health board CEO, Mr Stiofán de Burca, last week, the IMO wrote: "You will be aware that there is no agreement between the IMO and the Department of Health on such a grade in the Irish health service. Furthermore, you will be aware that the Taskforce on Medical Staffing (the Hanly taskforce) recommended against application of a hospitalist grade along the lines of the posts advertised".
A spokesman for the health board said last night that the board would be "engaging" with the IMO in due course. The physicians described in the adverts were, he said, non-consultant doctors who had completed their training and had some experience in emergency medicine.
Mr Hanly emphasised that 24 hour medical cover was different to 24 hour accident and emergency cover. He said 24 hour medical cover was having a doctor in a hospital at night and weekends to look after patients already in the hospital. To have a proper A&E service a hospital needed surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, radiologists, obstetricians/gynaecologists, and other specialists on site.
Last night Labour's health spokeswoman Ms Liz McManus claimed there was deliberate confusion being fomented by the Minister "to get the Government past the June 11th election in a damage limitation exercise".