Madam, - Minister for Health Mary Harney has expressed unease about the cost and throughput of surgical patients at Roscommon Hospital (Irish Times, Nov 3rd). Indeed, there appears to be a steady dripfeed of "concerned" articles on this topic - dare one suspect a "softening-up" process prior to the coup de grace, à la Monaghan? Local Fianna Fáil TD Michael Finneran returned with an apparently cast-iron assurance (verbal of course) from Mr Ahern himself, that the HSE plans for surgery in Roscommon were "nonsense". The following weekend's rumblings from Prof Drumm's direction (who doesn't require to be re-elected next May) were much less assuring.
All of this is very disquieting for patients, relatives and local GPs.
It is demoralising for the staff and is destroying the reputation of a very efficient surgical unit that has reduced its waiting list from over a year in 2003, to less than six weeks currently.
In the last 18 months we have had some spare capacity and are very willing, medical admissions permitting, to do extra work.
Curiously, 50 miles away in private Galway hospitals, public patients are being treated by the NTPF scheme, services we could deliver here at Roscommon.
Why such spectacular waste of public funds?
Neither the Minister nor the NTPF can claim they don't have the figures, since they have produced them!
At a stroke, the Minister could dramatically reduce costs and increase our surgical throughput.
It would surely do wonders for her unease. - Yours, etc,
LIAM J McMULLIN FRCSI, Roscommon Hospital, Roscommon.