Problems of Peamount Hospital

Madam, - The decision of the board of Peamount Hospital and the Eastern Regional Health Authority to withdraw from a scheduled…

Madam, - The decision of the board of Peamount Hospital and the Eastern Regional Health Authority to withdraw from a scheduled meeting on Friday last is extremely regrettable.

This meeting, with GPs and the community, had been requested many months ago.

It was cancelled at short notice on Friday afternoon.

This is clear evidence that the enormous importance that the local community and GPs attach to the chest services at Peamount is being completely ignored by the hospital's board.

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The meeting was particularly pertinent because management at the hospital had decided to refuse all admissions. The ERHA are Peamount's funders.

They agreed, in discussions with the community, that no changes in current services would occur without full consultation.

There is clear evidence that changes are being implemented unilaterally.

We request immediate consultation with the board and urge the ERHA to take appropriate action. - Yours, etc.,

Dr SEAN O'BRIEN, Dr JIM CLARKE, Celbridge, Co Kildare, Rathcoole, Co Dublin.

Madam, - We are Irish doctors working in Central Australia.

We have always had an interest in TB, having worked in countries with some of the highest rates of transmission in the world i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

"Shock" would describe how we felt when we read about the case of the Mater Hospital's East European TB patient (April 2nd).

Are we to believe that neither the Mater Hospital nor Peamount Hospital has a negative pressure isolation room?

Multidrug-resistant TB is now one of the major public health problems facing Europe and indeed the world.

Did Ireland learn anything from the SARS outbreak?

Wake up! - Yours, etc.,

DAVID FEGAN, JACQUELINE GLENNON, Alice Springs Hospital, Alice Springs NT, Australia.