Peamount agrees to accept new TB patients

Management at Peamount Hospital, Co Dublin, have reversed a decision not to admit new tuberculosis patients and have accepted…

Management at Peamount Hospital, Co Dublin, have reversed a decision not to admit new tuberculosis patients and have accepted the transfer of an acutely ill TB patient from the Mater Hospital.

In a statement in which it said it was responding to the public debate about its admission policy, Peamount said all new referrals must be assessed in an acute general hospital.

"The transfer of patients from other hospitals is to be considered in the context of these patients being non-acute and the transferring consultant's decision being based on a full understanding of the facilities and staff available at Peamount."

Last night a man of eastern European origin with acute TB was admitted to Peamount Hospital from the Mater. He is being treated as a case of multi-drug resistant TB and is receiving therapy with a cocktail of five antibiotics.

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Medical sources at the Mater said they were pleased the transfer had finally gone ahead as they believed Peamount represented the best location for the isolation and ongoing treatment of the man they had first attempted to transfer last Thursday.

Meanwhile, correspondence seen by The Irish Times appears to contradict a statement last week by Mr Robin Mullan, the CEO of Peamount, in which he denied that the hospital treated acute patients.

Writing to Dr Darina O'Flanagan, the director of the National Disease Surveillance Centre (NDSC) in October 2003, Ms Ann Quinlan, the then chair of Peamount hospital's board of management wrote: "I am happy to assure you that there was never any question of a hasty withdrawal from treatment of acute TB; rather planning for the orderly management of the disease and in due time transfer to an alternative suitable facility was the expected procedure".

Ms Quinlan noted Dr O'Flanagan's concerns (in a letter the previous month) that should tuberculosis services in Peamount be withdrawn without ensuring alternative arrangements, "there would be a potentially dangerous situation".

The correspondence indicates that both the NDSC and Ms Quinlan regard Peamount as a national facility.

This contradicts a statement by Mr Mullan last week when he said that Peamount was not the national specialist referral centre for TB.

A letter in August to Irish Nurses' Organisation representatives at Peamount from Mr Jim Breslin, the director of planning at the Eastern Regional Health Authority, also refers to "acute respiratory services currently provided at the hospital".