Forty children have had heart operations postponed by Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, this year, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent.
The figure was confirmed by the hospital last evening after a day of controversy surrounding its decision on Monday to defer heart surgery on two children due to a shortage of intensive care nurses.
The story, reported in yesterday's Irish Times, was raised in the Dáil before noon and in the afternoon the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, phoned the chief executive of the hospital, Mr Gerry O'Dwyer.
He assured her that contrary to claims by Fine Gael, the shortage of intensive care nurses in Crumlin on Monday was not due to the hospital refusing to pay them overtime because of funding problems.
The hospital, he said, had gone to enormous efforts to try to recruit intensive care nurses. It still has 17 vacancies.
A hospital spokeswoman said 22 of the 40 heart operations deferred this year were postponed for clinical reasons, or because families had requested them to be put off temporarily. But 18 deferrals were due to a lack of intensive care nurses, she said.
While the hospital said intensive care nurses are in short supply worldwide, not all hospitals are experiencing the same difficulties filling vacancies. A spokeswoman for Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin said it had just two vacancies for ICU nurses. The Mater Hospital said it had 12 vacancies.
Outside Dublin, Cork University Hospital reported "a small number of vacancies" yesterday while Galway Regional Hospital reported no vacancies for ICU nurses.
One of the two children sent home from Crumlin hospital on Monday after his heart surgery was postponed was gowned and ready for surgery when his operation was put off. Members of the child's family had travelled home from abroad for the operation which was originally scheduled for June. The hospital said it deeply regretted having had to postpone the "elective" or less urgent operations but it said two emergencies had taken precedence.
Dr Paul Oslizlok, a consultant paediatric cardiologist at the hospital, acknowledged families' lives were disrupted when operations were deferred but he said there was nothing to guarantee it wouldn't happen again because there was no knowing when emergencies would occur.
The deferral of surgery on children at the hospital again this week has caused controversy because when a two-year-old Limerick child, Róisín Ruddle, had her heart operation postponed by the same hospital over a year ago, she died at home the following day. A report into the circumstances surrounding her death is expected to be published shortly.
Dr Oslizlok accepted yesterday that this could happen again if children were having operations cancelled and were being sent home.