Hospital's theatre `unsafe'

Operations at Monaghan General Hospital are being conducted in an "inadequate and unsafe" environment, a consultancy firm has…

Operations at Monaghan General Hospital are being conducted in an "inadequate and unsafe" environment, a consultancy firm has told the North Eastern Health Board.

The board is arranging to transfer surgery to a purpose-built prefab while the operating theatre is being refurbished.

Healthcare Risk Resources International (HRRI) is a London-based consultancy which assesses the risks involved in delivering healthcare.

It was appointed by the NEHB to conduct an assessment at its hospitals and deliver a report by the end of this year.

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Asked to comment on a report in this week's Anglo-Celt, the NEHB confirmed yesterday the consultants were so concerned at the state of the operating theatre in Monaghan that they made an early report to the board.

They said there was an "urgent need" to improve standards of sterilisation and facilities for administering anaesthetics, for patient recovery and for staff changing clothes.

The NEHB said yesterday that "the deficiencies in the present theatre are such that remedial action must be taken immediately to ensure a safe environment for surgical procedures".

The theatre is nearly 60 years old and, said the NEHB, "while some upgrading of the ventilation, electrical and piped gas services have taken place, essentially it had no additional development to reflect contemporary operating theatre requirements and standards."

A temporary, prefabricated theatre "is urgently being sourced" to allow the permanent theatre to be refurbished. In the meantime, the theatre continues in use.

Irish theatre nurses may be exposing themselves to danger from radiation because of insufficient training in safety procedures, according to research currently being undertaken.

Preliminary research by Ms Elizabeth Farrell, a theatre sister at Dublin's Mater Hospital, has already won an award from the European Operating Room Nurses' Association.

That research showed nurses could expose themselves to excessive radiation because they were unaware of such issues as the distance they should stand from the patient.

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