A commitment to maintain and develop the accident and emergency unit at Ennis General Hospital is not inconsistent with Government support for the Hanly report, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said today.
The Minister said approval has been given to the Mid-western Health Board to advertise for four fully-qualified accident and emergency doctors to work in Ennis General on a minimum 2-year contract.
According to the Minister this would be an improvement on the resources currently in place in the A&E unit which was mainly staffed by nurses, junior doctors and an on-call consultant.
But the Minister's comments appear to run contrary to the recommendations of the Hanly report which suggested that A&E services in smaller, regional hospitals, like Ennis, be downgraded in favour of concentrating resources in regional centres of excellence. In the Mid-west area, Hanly sees Limerick Regional Hospital as the main hospital.
Mr Martin told RTE Radio this morning the key messages of the Hanly report are moving to a consultant-provided service by doubling the number of consultants and halving the number of junior doctors.
The Minister said the second issue is regional self-sufficiency. And Mr Martin accused people of grabbing "Hanly and trying to exploit it to bury the Government parties in the local elections."
Yesterday, when pressed on the issue, Mr Martin said Ennis General would have a 24-hour-a-day seven-days-a-week accident and emergency unit.