Planned surgery at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda was cancelled over the last two days because seriously-ill patients had to be ventilated in theatres, placing them off-limits for patients due to have operations. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The "crisis" is a result of a shortage of ventilation facilities at the hospital, which is the largest in the north-east, said Dr Kieran O'Connor, chairman of its medical board.
The hospital has an increasing workload with the number of operations performed in the first eight months of the year up 11 per cent on the same period last year. There are three ventilation beds, but only two of these are in use because of a nursing shortage.
Things came to a head, he said, on Wednesday when two people seriously injured in a traffic accident had to be ventilated in two of the theatres, thus cancelling elective surgery. Only emergency surgery is now taking place.
Dr O'Connor said such a lack of ventilation capacity was serious, as the hospital dealt with all major trauma for the region as well as complex surgery from Cavan General Hospital. Furthermore, the hospital's general bed capacity had been reduced by 21 since 1999 and by 40 between 1992 and 1999.
Lack of such facilities, in particular, put patients' lives at risk when transferring them to other hospitals for ventilation. "It is hazardous. You are talking about the sickest possible category of patients who need multiple organ support. There is literally no room for manoeuvre with these patients. These are the last patients you need to be transferring," he said.
Despite the hospital's increasing workload and the fact that it was a regional referral centre in all but title, there was no sign of it receiving extra resources. "Between 2002 and 2004 there has been a 90 per cent increase in the number of days patients spend on ventilators.
"The immediate implication of that is that many of the sickest patients who come into casualty have to be transferred out to other hospitals. Eight patients have been transferred from casualty to other hospitals in the month of September for ventilation.
"In addition to that, between June and September inclusive, 12 patients have been transferred from our intensive care unit to other hospitals for ventilation support and critical care because of a lack of capacity here."
He said the hospital was being neglected.
"This is a crisis and it has been building for some time. We sent a letter to the Minister for Health in April this year pointing out the problems, and he said it was a matter for the North Eastern Health Board. It [the NEHB\] is winding down and there seems to be a loss of direction that may be attributable to the change over to the new structures, or to other factors at work in the NEHB that we do not understand," he said.
An NEHB spokesman said all he could say was there was a difficulty with ventilated patient capacity at the hospital and as a result elective surgery had been cancelled until further notice. He could not comment further.