THE REVIEW of chest X-rays and CT scans reported on by a locum consultant radiologist who worked at two hospitals in the northeast in 2006 and 2007 has already cost €333,000, new figures show.
The figures have been provided by the Health Service Executive which indicated the cost of the review to date has come out of the budget of the two hospitals where the consultant worked - Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.
The review of the consultant's work was announced last May and at that time the HSE sent letters to 4,600 patients advising them their X-rays were being double-checked.
Announcing the review, Minister for Health Mary Harney told the Dáil it was for precautionary reasons. She said that in late 2007, the HSE learned that a small number of patients attending hospitals in Drogheda and Navan had their diagnosis delayed due to an abnormality on their chest X-ray not being noted on initial examination by the radiologist. These four patients, through follow-up X-rays, were subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer and all had since died, she said.
It has since emerged that the review, which is almost complete, will say a total of nine patients had a delayed diagnosis as a result of errors made by the doctor.
It is also understood it will say hundreds of other mistakes were also made by the locum when reading X-rays, but these errors did not have significant clinical consequences for the patients involved. However, they could have had if they were not subsequently spotted.
Tomás Sharkey, a Sinn Féin councillor in Louth and a member of the HSE's Dublin North East health forum, who was provided with details of the cost of the review to date, said: "This crisis of misdiagnosis of lung cancer is, I believe, a result of bad structures. Insult is now being added to injury with the revelation that one third of a million euro has come out of hospital budgets to get to the bottom of the crisis - and the total spend is not yet complete and no report has yet been issued."
He added that when "management and government mess up they just add the pain, burden and punishment on to patients" by cutting hospital services. Recently surgical beds were closed in Dundalk and elective orthopaedic services were cut at Navan hospital due to budgetary problems.
"€333,00 is a lot of money for northeast hospitals. €130,000 would reopen the 24-bed surgical ward at the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk and €4,000 would pay for a hip replacement operation in Navan," Mr Sharkey said.
The HSE has said that, on legal advice, it must wait for certain matters to be finalised before publishing the report of the review.
It has also confirmed a review of water births at Cavan and Drogheda hospitals in 2006 cost €29,800 and a review of the circumstances leading to the death of Pat Joe Walsh, after efforts to transfer him from Monaghan hospital for urgent surgery failed in 2005, cost €267,510.