DOCTORS AT Dublin’s Tallaght hospital were predicting more than two years ago that the backlog of unreported X-rays at the hospital would become a “major scandal” and “come back to haunt” the hospital unless something was done to tackle it.
Correspondence released to The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information Act also shows senior HSE officials were aware of a radiology backlog at the hospital for months before the matter came into the public domain last March.
While up to now the HSE has said it did not become aware of the backlog until December 2009, when a new chief executive took over at the hospital, letters released by the hospital show its then chief executive Michael Lyons wrote to a HSE hospital network manager in May 2009 pointing out that the hospital’s radiology department was “under extreme pressure and would realistically require three new consultants”. He added: “Given the backlog issue I am most anxious to progress these posts”.
Another letter in May 2009 from Dr William Torreggiani, a radiologist in the hospital, to colleagues noted there was a “rush after weeks of inaction” to get the backlog cleared because the Health Information and Quality Authority had become aware of it. “Apparently HSE under pressure from HIQA to tackle our backlog urgently,” he wrote.
While an independent investigation chaired by Dr Maurice Hayes into the factors which led to nearly 58,000 X-rays going unreported at the hospital between 2006 and 2009 found consultant radiologists were writing to hospital management about the problem for years, copies of those letters were not included in the Hayes report published earlier this month. They were released by the hospital yesterday.
Two letters from radiologists to hospital management in 2006 and 2007 pointed out that the hospital’s computerised X-ray system was “crap”, “a nightmare”, and kept breaking down. Dr Fintan Regan, director of the radiology department, told management in May 2006 that on many occasions prior images from a patient could not be retrieved, which had “huge potential medico-legal implications”. They were the equivalent of “lost films”, he said.
In November 2007, Dr Torreggiani also warned hospital management that many X-ray films “disappear after a few hours” and were “not retrievable”. Raising questions as to whether the true extent of the backlog could ever be gauged, he said the fact that films disappeared meant it was “haphazard as to what part of the backlog gets cleared”.
In a letter a year later in October 2008, he told management, after a number of misdiagnoses in other parts of the State were reported, that he was still concerned about the radiology backlog. “Many X-rays go unreported and all it needs is one case like those that have been in the press lately for us to have a major scandal”. He said three additional radiologists were required immediately. “It may be that we will not get these resources that we badly need but I feel that the HSE needs to be aware of these issues . . . If we continue in this fashion, I have no doubt that we will end up embroiled in one of these scandals and I do not want the HSE to turn around and deny knowledge of the problem,” he wrote.
Earlier in July 2008, Dr Torreggiani urged hospital management to seek legal opinion on what to do about the backlog.
When news of the backlog emerged, the hospital disclosed two patients, one of whom had died, had a delayed diagnosis. The backlog has now been reviewed and no other missed diagnoses were found.