At least 15 per cent of the operations scheduled to take place at Cavan General Hospital since the beginning of the year have had to be cancelled, it was confirmed yesterday.
The Health Service Executive said 67 operations at the hospital had to be cancelled during January and February but it stressed 357 elective and emergency operations were carried out over the same period.
Staff at the hospital say overcrowding in the hospital's accident and emergency department has become so severe that elective surgery is being cancelled on a constant basis.
There were close to 40 patients on trolleys in the unit one day last week.
A HSE spokeswoman admitted the A&E unit was under pressure but that an extra 25 beds were being commissioned at the hospital.
The hospital has also made a submission to the HSE's National Hospitals Office seeking the establishment of a medical assessment unit, she said.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that the hospital's A&E unit deals with over 20,000 attendances a year, it still does not have a permanent A&E consultant. It has a locum consultant who also has to provide cover to at least one other hospital in the region.
When this consultant is not in Cavan, the A&E unit is covered by junior doctors and, at times, by other consultants in the hospital.
As far back as 2004, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland warned management at the hospital that the future of its A&E unit was in doubt unless it was able to recruit at least three accident and emergency consultants. And a HSE commissioned report from Teamwork consultants published last summer said the A&E unit at Cavan was seriously deficient in consultant supervision.
The HSE spokeswoman said it now hoped to fill the A&E consultant post on a permanent basis from May 1st. "We are also working on filling two other permanent consultant posts in A&E," she added.
The Teamwork report also recommended a new regional hospital should be built in the northeast from which A&E services for the entire area should be provided.
The HSE has placed advertisements in newspapers today seeking submissions from the public and interested parties on where in the region this new hospital should be located.