HEALTH LEGISLATION relating to enforced treatment of patients needs to be urgently updated, according to a patients’ rights advocate.
Patient Focus national co-ordinator Sheila O’Connor was responding yesterday to reports that a man suffering with TB was treated in isolation for two years against his will under health legislation applied by Galway University Hospital.
“The 1940s and 50s were a different time, there has been a huge difference in the way people look at care. There are still some throwbacks and this legislation is one of them,” she said.
Saying she could not comment on an individual case, Ms O’Connor said the role of hospitals had changed as in the past their duty was more to protect the public than to cure patients.
Patient Focus sees the detention of any patient against their will as a serious matter, especially for a vulnerable person, she added. The man in this case was homeless.
The HSE confirmed yesterday that at present no one is being held under this legislation in Ireland. Their records show in the last decade one other person had been forcibly isolated, also for TB-related reasons.
However, Prof Joe Keane, respiratory consultant at St James’s Hospital in Dublin said: “It’s been applied more than that. Personally I know of four times it has been applied, twice in St James’s.”
Prof Keane feels the legislation is necessary to ensure that people who choose not to have treatment cannot then infect others.
Stressing the acts do not allow for forced treatment, he said someone refusing treatment and maybe suffering from a drug-resistant form of TB should be isolated to maintain public health.
In a statement the HSE said it had “statutory duties to prevent and control certain conditions. The extent and duration of measures required depends upon the patient, their response to treatment and who will be exposed to the patient. Occasionally patients in hospitals require security for the protection of themselves and other people.”
A spokesperson confirmed this isolation case had cost €1.394 million and had lasted for 680 days.
Legislation allows for enforced isolation with respect to certain illnesses under Section 48 of the 1947 Health Act and the 1953 Health Amendment Act.