THE HSE has confirmed that the new emergency department for the largest hospital in the northeast will not open until the autumn, more than 18 months behind schedule.
It also said that staffing for the larger unit at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, has not yet been finalised, a situation about which the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) is concerned.
In February of last year, when the INO said the situation at the unit was “ludicrous”, the HSE said it would be open by the end of 2008 but it did not meet that target.
“At the moment the Lourdes AE has nearly the same attendance as the Mater hospital but with 50 per cent of the staffing at the Mater,” said INO branch secretary Tony Fitzpatrick.
He said that while the HSE has given him a commitment to talk to the union on staffing for the new unit, “my view is there is no money or resources for additional staffing, so management will be asked to operate it with the same deplorable staffing levels they have at the moment. We would obviously have grave concerns about that.”
The new unit will have 25 trolleys, six specifically for children, and has cost more than €11 million to build.
Fine Gael TD for Louth Fergus O’Dowd said the delay in opening the unit “is a disgrace”.
“So much has been invested in this unit for the region and here we are with no clarity about when these badly needed services will be available to the people who need them.”
He said the current facilities at the Lourdes were not good enough. “This hospital was built in the 1950s as a local hospital, this unit is badly needed – at the moment the situation is simply a disgrace.”
A spokeswoman for the HSE said the structural works were complete and work was under way on the installing and commissioning of its X-ray equipment.
“When work in the entire department is finished, testing of the building management system will take place, followed by a clinical clean and the fitting/installation of equipment.”