Crisis at Mullingar hospital is not over - senior staff member

The Midland Regional Hospital at Mullingar will not make it through the winter unless the 41 beds shut down by the HSE are re-opened according to a senior staff member. "There has been no change in the difficulties that we are facing here at the hospital," said a leading hospital clinician despite the fact that the A&E Department was re-opened on Friday evening after 24-hours of being "off-call" last Thursday. "The situation remains unresolved. There is an on-going shortage of emergency beds and we have made very little headway. There has been maybe one or two additional staff put into the A&E department, but the casualty is still overcrowded," he said. Figures released by the Irish Nurses Organisation yesterday (Tuesday) indicated "We need those beds re-opened to get through the winter, otherwise we simply won't make it." As the news flooded out that there was no room at Mullingar's A&E department on Thursday lunchtime of last week, twenty-three people were waiting on trolleys to be admitted. Ambulances were redirected to A&E departments at hospitals in Tullamore, Portlaoise and Ballinasloe. The chronic overcrowding caused by Health Service Executive's decision to take forty-one beds at the hospital out of the system just weeks beforehand, plus their failure to replace 35 nursing staff members who had retired, caused an emergency unlike any other in living memory of the hospital, which resulted in the decision by senior clinicians to take Mullingar 'off-call'.Deputy Willie Penrose slammed the HSE for denying people in need of urgent medical treatment, of that care: "This situation was all-too predictable. As a result, people in Longford and Westmeath who need to be admitted to hospital will have nowhere local to go. This is outrageous and the HSE and this Government are treating the citizens of Longford-Westmeath as second-class citizens," he insisted."I have lost all faith in the HSE, as I personally have been fooled by them once too often. The Government and the HSE think nothing of riding roughshod over the people of Longford and Westmeath. This has to stop now, and they are not going to get away with this." Fine Gael Longford/ Westmeath Senator, Nicky McFadden said the news that overcrowding at Mullingar was a cause for real concern, not only for the patients attending at Mullingar but for the surrounding region which will struggle to access alternative services. "Staff voiced genuine concerns for patient safety this afternoon and should be commended for their actions. Fianna Fáil and the Greens are determined to make an already dreadful healthcare situation worse by continually taking beds out of the system. The people of the Midlands are now feeling the impact of such foolhardy decisions."Sinn Féin spokesperson for Longford/Westmeath Councillor Paul Hogan slammed the HSE and the Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government over what he has described as 'massive mismanagement of Mullingar Regional Hospital. "The closure of 41 beds in recent times and the non-replacement of 35 nursing staff members due to the moratorium on recruitment are having a devastating impact on the level of service that we need to provide for a population of approximately 100,000 people in this region. This is of no fault of the staff and doctors of Mullingar Regional Hospital who persevere under the most difficult of circumstances and conditions to endeavour to provide a top quality service to the people of Westmeath, Longford and surrounding areas. On Tuesday night of this week, a special meeting of Westmeath County Council was called to discuss the future of the hospital.