Hospitals can’t deal with mass attack, HSE is told

IRISH hospitals are wholly unprepared to cope with a critical emergency on a large scale – in the event of a terrorist attack or serious epidemic – senior health professionals have warned the HSE.

Dr Michael Power, clinical lead for the HSE Critical Care Programme, flagged his concerns in an internal report to senior HSE managers, which was released to the Medical Independent newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act.

Dr Power stressed that intensive care units (ICUs) were ‘operating past full capacity daily, with delayed and failed access for many critically ill patients, leading to avoidable poor and bad outcomes’.

As a result, he continued: ‘It is not feasible to plan for a mass-casualty incident (MCI) response, given this decreased ICU capacity’.

Dr Power urged an increase in ICU capacity in hospitals, with new revenue and capital funding required, in a document sent to Liam Woods, director of acute hospitals, and Dr Colm Henry, national clinical advisor lead at acute hospitals.

In response to queries from the Irish Mail on Sunday yesterday, a spokesperson for the HSE said it had recently put in place a new mass-casualty plan as part of its emergency planning approach.

However, neither the plan, nor the details it contains, were disclosed at the time of going to print.