The ongoing uncertainty over TB services at Peamount Hospital was sharply criticised by doctors attending the Irish Medical Organisation's agm in Killarney at the weekend.
Dr Fenton Howell, a public health specialist with the North Eastern Health Board, described the situation as "a mess".
"It is completely unacceptable to have non-medical people deciding on the transfer of patients," he said, in reference to the recent refusal by management at Peamount to allow the transfer of a Romanian immigrant with acute TB from the Mater Hospital to the TB unit at Peamount. The hospital subsequently reversed this decision and the man is now receiving treatment there for multidrug-resistant TB.
The absence of a national strategy for the control and management of infectious diseases such as TB means that the Republic will be the weakest link in the new EU centre for disease control which is due to become operational next year, the meeting heard. Dr Lelia Thornton, a public heath specialist with the Eastern Regional Health Authority, speaking on a motion urging the Department of Health to develop a national strategy, said infectious diseases continued to pose a significant risk to public health.
Supporting the motion, Dr Neil Brennan, consultant respiratory physician at the Mercy Hospital, Cork, said it was extraordinary to suggest the closure of the TB unit in Peamount before setting up alternative services in St James's Hospital and other centres in the Republic.
A full hearing into a request by the medical director and senior medical officer of Peamount, seeking to restrain the hospital from altering their conditions of employment, is scheduled to begin in the High Court today.