Wipeout as HSE axes more beds at hospital

A serious step towards the downgrading of Mullingar Hospital took place on Thursday last - with the result that senior doctors at the hospital now believe the facility to be potentially "unsafe".The HSE closed 25 emergency beds at the hospital on Thursday - bringing to 41 the number of beds closed since the start of the Summer.The figure represents a fifth of the total number of emergency beds at the hospital."This drastic cut in emergency beds, represents what I would term a 'pre-emptive decapitation' of our ability to provide emergency care for our patients in Mullingar," Professor Sean Murphy told the Westmeath Examiner this week."I would contend that we will not have enough acute emergency beds in Mullingar and that the 20% reduction in same makes it 100% certain that this hospital will be unable to cope with the surge of acute admissions seen here every winter."The HSE is denying that it has cut 41 beds from the hospital's quotient, and has said this week that because it is opening a number of day beds, the actual net drop in bed numbers comes to just 21 - ten per cent of the hospital's emergency beds."The increase in day beds from 11 to 24 will actually mean that Mullingar Hospital will treat more patients in 2010 than it treated in 2009," the HSE said in a statement issued on Friday.But Professor Murphy is accusing the HSE of trying to confuse people, by interchangeably referring to Day and Acute beds as if they were the same thing."The concern here is the reduction of 41 emergency or acute beds. If we had a thousand extra day beds, that would not help the acute emergency admissions (often elderly) who present to this hospital," a furious Prof. Murphy said.The HSE has said that increasing the number of day beds at the hospital will mean that both elective general surgery and elective gynaecology will be protected: "The additional day capacity will also accommodate an increase in cardiology, respiratory and radiology patients. The Medical Assessment Unit, which has received much praise, will also cater for a greater number of patients." Professor Murphy said he welcomes the provision of the additional day beds: "(They) are most welcome and needed for the types of patients they are designed to deal with ie day cases which in the main are elective or planned procedures - but certainly are not acute medical or surgical admissions."Professor Murphy believes no other hospital is being subjected to the sort of cuts being inflicted on Mullingar.The cuts in beds came as patients from the male and female surgical wards were moved to new purpose built SARI (Strategy for the control of Antimicrobial Resistance in Ireland)-compliant wards in the hospital.But Professor Murphy says there is another ward that could be used that would bring the number of acute beds in the hospital back up by 26. He wants the HSE to open up Ward 3 in the hospital's West Wing, which already has beds - not currently in use - in place."This ward just has not been opened or staffed and was part of the new wing of the hospital whose opening was guaranteed by many FF politicians over recent years," he said, before lashing out at Fianna Fáil for failing to deliver "even the 'shell' which dates back to the mid 90s - never mind the rest of Phase 2B which was to have been built at a cost of €50m"."Opening up Ward 3 West Wing and providing staff for it's use 24/7 would still mean acute beds being lost from MRHM due to budgetary issues but would at least mean we could have a safe service," he said.The questionsWhy has Mullingar Hospital never received the full "reward" allocated to it from the Department of Health for the past several years for its top-of-the-league performance on the annual Casemix survey, which measures hospital efficiency?Why is the budget to the hospital in Mullingar consistently lower than the budget to the hospital in Naas - which treats considerably fewer patients?Has there been - as was reported in the Leinster Express newspaper last week - a "high-level recommendation reached in the past month to close (maternity) units in Portlaoise, Mullingar and Ballinasloe, with services shifting to Dublin or Galway?"