CARDIAC PATIENTS attending Roscommon hospital had four times the mortality rate of those admitted to Galway University Hospital, Minister for Health Dr James Reilly told the Dáil last night.

He said that rough statistics contained in a draft report, not yet finalised, were so startling that they could not be ignored.

“One of them is that if you go to Galway, you have a 5.8 per cent mortality rate,” he added.

“If you go to Roscommon, you have a 21.3 per cent mortality rate.” Dr Reilly said that was not the fault of the doctors in Roscommon hospital, adding that it was a reflection of the fact that the skill sets and back-up were not there.

He insisted that any statement he made during the election campaign about Roscommon hospital was made in good faith.

“Any utterance I made was borne out of a strong conviction that all hospitals have a future with integrity in their community,” he added.

“Anything I said was in defence of hospitals and out of a determination that no hospital should be downgraded out of existence.”

His priority, he said, was to defend patients, and, above all else, ensure their safety when they were at the most vulnerable and utterly reliant on the skills of those around them to save their lives.

Dr Reilly said it was his intention that Roscommon hospital would deliver safe and appropriate care 24 hours and seven days a week.

It was the beginning of a new lease of life for the hospital, he added.

The Minister was responding to a Sinn Féin Private Members’ motion critical of the Government’s downgrading of facilities in regional hospitals.

Party spokesman on health Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the only meaning from Dr Reilly’s pre-election commitment was that Fine Gael in government would reinstate a 24/7 service.

“That is what you intended; that is what you meant,” said Mr Ó Caoláin.

He added that any twisting with words would not alter that one iota.

Roscommon-South Leitrim Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten said that door to door, via the motorway, Roscommon hospital was one hour and 21 minutes from Galway University Hospital.

“This does not include the time for the call-out, assessment and stabilisation of the patient by a paramedic and return time from the scene of the emergency,” he added.

“I am not a medical expert, but the total disregard for these facts does not seem to make sense to me.” Mr Naughten said that members of the medical profession in Roscommon should meet the Minister and his advisers and thrash out the so-called safety issues facing Roscommon hospital once and for all.

Earlier, Taoiseach Enda Kenny denied the Government had broken its pre-election promises to local communities on the retention of hospital services.

He said Labour and Fine Gael had each produced a programme before the election, as was their right.

“When the people decided to cast their votes in the election, both Fine Gael and Labour came together and produced a programme for government, which was endorsed in the House and is being implemented,” he added.

He was replying to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who said that when the Taoiseach had launched his general election campaign he had talked at length about how the promises he would make in the campaign would be completely different from anything that had gone before.

“With typical understatement, he promised a new redemptive politics and a new redemptive trust,” he added.

“He looked people in the eye and told them they could trust him and that he would keep his promises.”