Services Will Remain At Navan Hospital: HSE

The Health Service Executive has said that existing services will be maintained at Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan until they are replaced with more appropriate services.

The comments came after a draft report for the HSE said that the accident and emergency unit and general surgery should be curtailed at the hospital. The HSE described the report as being part of an ongoing process to provide the highest quality of care to patients and staff.

The unpublished report said that only minor injury cases should be treated in the hospital while surgery should be reduced because of what was described as ‘minimum infrastructure’.

The report, part of which has been seen by RTÉ News, says there are major problems at A&E as well as other areas of the hospital. The report’s authors, the UK-based Capita Advisory Services, concluded that the hospital ‘does not have sufficient infrastructure to care safely for major emergencies’.

It said that ‘services there should be reduced to minor injuries cases only.also known as the walking wounded’. The draft report said there were problems with training junior doctors in the hospital – there were insufficient volumes to maintain the training standards needed, it said.

In relation to surgery there was an ‘absence of minimum infrastructure’ which means the service could not meet the expectations and standards required.

In fact, major emergency and major general surgical cases should not be treated in Our Lady’s but instead referred to a larger hospital, the report states.

Having reviewed a number of patient files, the authors highlight other areas of concern such as delays in operations due to staff availability, lack of experience and supervision of junior doctors.