Sir, – You report that 16 years after the Horwarth Report noted that closure of emergency units in the midwest should not occur until capacity at University Hospital Limerick was increased, the Clarke report into the sad death of Aoife Johnston published last week found that risks to patients “will not be further minimised without addressing the fundamental problem of overcrowding in the emergency department” (News, September 20th).
A third report by the HSE also published last week found that given the overcrowding in the emergency department and assessment units “the opportunity for these units to function is non-existent”. The HSE is responsible for running University Hospital Limerick .
The Minister for Health’s response is to ask the Health Information and Quality Authority to conduct a review into urgent and emergency care capacity in the midwest. Is it not already clear that capacity is completely inadequate?
In recent months, the Minister has made much of improving the productivity of the health service, with particular focus on statistics for consultant activity. In August, he pointed to increases in consultant numbers and said that he wanted every patient-facing consultant to have a performance and productivity review. He does not seem to realise that productivity will not improve until capacity is increased, and progress in this area is glacially slow. See the plans for three elective hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Galway (though not Limerick) announced by the Government in December 2021. Not a brick has been laid to date.
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The tender for the first phase – to appoint design and project control teams – only went out in April of this year. The opening date of the new national children’s hospital remains unknown.
Consultants and surgeons need facilities and operating theatres to do their jobs. I very much doubt that Ryanair, for example, would see any sense in employing pilots without providing them with planes to fly, and then complain about their lack of productivity. Perhaps Michael Cawley, former deputy CEO of Ryanair, and recently reported as soon to be appointed to the board of the HSE, might have a word in the Minister’s ear. – Yours, etc,
Dr PETER BOYLAN,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Why does Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly feel it necessary to ask the Health Information and Quality Authority to “lead a review into urgent and emergency care capacity in the Midwest region” when the need for greater capacity had been identified 16 years earlier? It is also clear that the problem had only become greater in the intervening years. Immediate action is what is required, not a review. – Yours, etc,
TONY GREANY,
Mornington,
Co Meath.