A reorganisation of acute hospital services in south Tipperary has been announced by the Health Service Executive which will see the transfer of A&E and surgical services from Our Lady's Hospital in Cashel to South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel.
The move, which had been anticipated for a number of years, takes effect from January and will result in all acute hospital services for south Tipperary being provided from one site.
The plan was first given the go- ahead by then health minister Michael Noonan in 1995. Since then doctors in the region have been complaining that it was unsafe to have acute services spread across two hospital sites.
Dr Paud O'Regan, a consultant physician in the Clonmel hospital, said in 2003 that the lives of patients in south Tipperary were being put at risk by the ongoing division of acute medical and surgical services across two hospitals located 15 miles apart.
He claimed the division of services between his hospital in Clonmel and Our Lady's Hospital in Cashel was resulting in delayed diagnosis and delayed treatment, as well as unnecessary transportation from one hospital to another of frequently very ill, and often very old patients.
The division of acute services in south Tipperary, he explained, meant 24-hour medical cover was not available for surgical patients in Cashel who developed medical illness. It also meant surgical opinions and treatment were not available on site in Clonmel for acutely ill medical patients who developed surgical problems.
Furthermore, it meant there was no intensive care unit in Clonmel and that a comprehensive epidural service could not be provided to maternity patients in Clonmel.