After being off-call for more than two years, Monaghan General Hospital began accepting patients arriving by ambulance again yesterday.
The restoration of the hospital's on-call status was greeted by the local community, particularly the local hospital action group which claimed lives were lost as a result of patients having to be transferred more than 30 miles to the other nearest hospital on call, Cavan General Hospital.
The hospital is now back on call for adult medical emergencies. Surgical emergencies must still be transferred to Cavan Hospital or Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
However, the Health Service Executive North East Region (formerly the North Eastern Health Board) said three-quarters of emergencies arriving at A&E in Monaghan would be medical cases. "Hence, even though Monaghan General Hospital is not going back on call for surgery, the hospital will be able to deal with the majority of cases that would have presented pre-July 2002.
"Patients admitted to Monaghan who subsequently have a surgical problem will be assessed clinically and transferred as appropriate to Cavan General Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, or elsewhere as decided by medical staff at Monaghan. All critically-ill patients will be taken by the ambulance service to the nearest acute hospital, including Monaghan General Hospital."
Maternity cases from Monaghan will continue to have to go to Cavan or Drogheda.
Since the hospital went off-call in 2002, a number of people who collapsed with suspected heart attacks in Monaghan town, just yards from the hospital, have had to travel by ambulance to Cavan.
In two recent cases, patients died en route, and a local doctor claimed if they had been treated immediately in Monaghan and given clot-busting drugs their chances of survival would have been improved.
The hospital recently recruited five non-consultant hospital doctors specialising in anaesthesia to allow the resumption of medical on-call. In addition, the health board has decided to renew the contracts of junior hospital doctors working in the surgery department for another six months despite threatening not to do so late last year.
In a statement yesterday it said these doctors would ensure continuity of cover in the emergency room, which is being extended, and support the surgery department, where planned or elective surgery would still be provided.
Mr Peadar McMahon, of the Monaghan Community Hospital Alliance, welcomed the news that the hospital was going back on call for medical cases.
"It's a very good step forward. But we are disappointed they did not include surgery in that, especially with the situation in Cavan at the moment.
"Monaghan has the facilities and staff and the bed capacity to take on more surgery and relieve the pressure on Cavan and give it time to work out a permanent solution to the problems there."
Mr McMahon said recently a patient in Monaghan hospital needed surgery, and attempts were made to transfer the patient to Cavan or Drogheda. Neither hospital could take the patient as they already had several patients on trolleys, and the patient was operated on in Monaghan. "This shows major surgery can be done in Monaghan. So it is ludicrous to have patients lying on trolleys in Cavan when they could be treated in Monaghan."