Louth hospital services to close

Louth County Hospital is to have its 24-hour A&E closed and its acute services moved to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda as a result of a shortage of junior doctors.

Meanwhile, there was some confusion this evening over whether the crisis over the withdrawal of training recognition from over 1,000 junior doctor posts, which has helped lead to the shortage, had now been resolved.

The  junior doctor shortage has led the HSE to speed up plans already in place for the transfer of hospital services from Dundalk to Drogheda over the coming months as part of hospital reconfiguration in the area.

The HSE has announced a contingency plan for the Louth-Meath Hospital group to cope with he expected shortfall in junior doctor numbers from July 1.

The contingency plan involves changing Louth County Hospital's 24-hour A&E to a seven-day minor injuries unit or a 12-hour emergency department, depending on the availability of junior doctors from July 1.

A new emergency department is to open at Drogheda next week, with an interim medical assessment unit to be opened to help alleviate pressure on the A&E.

The HSE said the decision to transfer services from Dundalk to Drogheda is based on the significant body of evidence which indicates that acute complex care, particularly for emergency medicine, surgical services and critical care, should be provided in high volume hospitals.

There has been a fall-off in applications for junior doctor posts mainly as a decision taken to remove training recognition from around 1,200 of these posts.

The HSE said last night that contingency plans were being prepared in each of the four HSE regions to deal with problems with doctor shortages if they arise.

However, it said having consulted with the Medical Council and the Department of Health, it had now accepted that where possible all existing training posts would continue to be recognised as training posts for a further year.

However, it is unclear at this stage whether this will ease the doctor shortage by July 1.

The Department of Health, in a statement today, said it welcomed the resolution of the training posts issue, which meant it would not impact on patient services.

Donal Duffy of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association said whether the issue had been satisfactorily resolved had yet to be clarified, pointing out that it was ultimately up to the Medical Council to decide on training post recognition.

He said the IHCA would be meeting with Health Minister Mary Harney tomorrow to discuss the issue.

[Posted: Tue 15/06/2010]