CURTAILMENT OF services at Cavan General Hospital were necessary for safety reasons, the Health Service Executive (HSE) insisted yesterday.
This followed the release by Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly of an internal hospital memorandum outlining the service reductions.
A HSE spokeswoman said there had been a 40 per cent to 50 per cent increase in referrals to the emergency department and the medical assessment unit at the hospital in the past week or so.
“In the light of the current number of patients presenting to the hospital, the senior management team has put in place a number of temporary service curtailments,” she added.
“These service curtailments are necessary to allow the hospital to return to safe levels of activity.”
The spokeswoman said all emergency services, oncology services, ante-natal clinics and phlebotomy services would not be affected during the curtailment period.
She said all cancellations were being prioritised and all cancer patients were exempted, as were urgent colonoscopy patients who were being treated in Monaghan hospital this week.
Medical outpatient services on Friday, as well as surgical elective admissions on Saturday and Sunday, were deferred.
All elective cases scheduled for yesterday, today and tomorrow, as well as all medical clinics, have been deferred.
The assessment and rehabilitation unit is closed, except for the assessment of inpatients who are for discharge.
All stress tests on the Monaghan hospital site have also been deferred.
Dr Reilly said it was clear the health services were facing a winter of discontent.
It was clear, he added, that in the northeast patients and patient services were on the lower rung of priorities.
