This article is from page 19 of the 2012-05-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
A SIGNIFICANT cut in hospital budgets, an increase in the number of seriously ill patients requiring hospital treatment and an urgent need for a new Emergency Department to cater for the growing needs of the mid-west area are all challenges facing the new CEO of the Mid Western Hospitals Group, Ann Doherty.
The woman charged with overseeing a new single hospital system for Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary is optimistic about the future despite the challenges.
Ms Doherty accepts that there are many shortfalls within the current system and does not dispute the “trolley watch figures” published daily by the nurse’s union – the INO.
A number of measures are already being put in place to deal with bed shortages including a patient flow system across the region’s hospitals, which sees day procedures transferred to Nenagh and Ennis.
She said the new emergency department, which has received approval, is also urgently needed.
Under the new hospital system a board of governors will be appointed to which Ms Doherty will report.
She explained that the new board of governance would provide a democratic input into the hospital system that many felt was lost with the dis- solution of the former health boards.
“We are engaged in building a single hospital system. If that sounds radical let me assure you that the Trust will not be an exercise in centralisation of services at the expense of the smaller hospitals. It is significant that changes in medicine and technology are leading to the establishment of region-wide specialist departments in fields such as radiology and cardiology. This had led to dramatic improvements such as in Ennis where tele-radiology was introduced in April 2011 as the main method of reporting X-rays and the development of outreach cardiology services such as the heart watch programme,” she said.
“The experience in Limerick over the last number of years is that three hospitals were organised to work as a single clinical unit providing acute care, orthopaedic and maternity services to the region. This concept is now being extended to include Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s hospitals as part of the Mid-West Hospitals Group and operating as one single hospital system of corporate and clinical governance.”
Complex medical cases will be treated at the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick.
“Facilities at the smaller hospitals (like Ennis) can be used to the maximum to ensure that people with less complex care needs get their treat- ment in a timely fashion and not experience delays as a consequence of pressure in the bigger centre,” said Ms Doherty.
“The challenge facing us is to bring about a unified hospital system in the mid-west at a time when we must focus on reducing costs while maintaining services. This year our budget has dropped by € 21.768 million or nine per cent on the 2011 figure,” she said.
“It is going to be extremely tough to maintain activity levels with this resource. It means we have to make what we have been given by the taxpayer go further through managing every aspect of our business more efficiently.”