INMO fears as Tallaght diverts critical cases
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A DECISION to withdraw acute paediatric surgical services from Tallaght hospital has been strongly criticised by the nurses and midwives’ union.
The INMO said its staff had no warning about the extension of the ‘downgrade’, and only discovered the change had been made when they arrived to work this week.
It said that around 6,000 additional cases had been diverted to Crumlin and Temple Street since March – and the union claimed that neither of those hospitals had been given additional resources to cope.
On Wednesday, Crumlin reported its highest number of patients on trolleys since the pandemic began, as 13 children went without beds.
Paediatric services at Tallaght were temporarily relocated in March due to the need to concentrate on adult services to deal with the Covid-19 surge. The Children’s Hospital at Tallaght was due to fully reopen last Monday. But CHI said that critically ill and critically injured children will conintue to be diverted to Crumlin and Temple Street .
Hospital management said the change in policy was due to the impact of Covid-19, which had decreased Tallaght’s inpatient and day case capacity by 20%.
But union members are said to have been frustrated at the ‘sudden and unexpected downgrade’.
The INMO said further meetings were planned over the next number of weeks with Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), which governs acute paediatric services at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght, to discuss the impact of the move. INMO industrial relations officer for CHI Tallaght, Joe Hoolan, said: ‘Reconfiguring services in such a frantic manner is simply unsafe.’
His INMO colleague at Crumlin and Temple Street, Mary Rose Carroll, said staff ‘have not been given extra resources but are expected to cope with thousands of extra acute patients’.
The CHI said: ‘This winter, we have a new unknown and additional challenge of Covid-19… we need to manage our beds and services differently this winter.’