‘Obsolete machine puts lives at risk’
FEARS are being raised for patients after a consultant cardiologist warned HSE bosses for over a year that he feared an ‘obsolete’ heart scanner was leading to misdiagnoses.
Dr Boban Thomas, who was a locum consultant based at Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan, Co. Meath, was so worried he put a disclaimer on patients’ ultrasounds, saying he couldn’t stand over the results.
In response, the Ireland East Hospital Group commissioned a review and said there is no need to recall patients who Dr Thomas is worried about.
However, local Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, has urged the HSE to take action, warning that it is ‘beyond worrying when a Clinical Engineering Lead in the HSE states that a echocardioechogram machine is on a register of obsolete equipment for over a year and is still being used to diagnose thousands of patients’.
Dr Thomas said he first informed the HSE by email over two years ago about the ‘problematic’ cardioechogram (ECG) machine, which is a type of ultrasound scan used to look at the heart. The scanner wasn’t replaced until late 2017.
In a series of emails from May 30, 2016 to May 2, 2017, the consultant cardiologist asked for a replacement machine, saying that the continued use of the machine was ‘morally unethical’.
He emailed hospital chiefs describing the situation as ‘critical’: ‘The echocardiography unit, as you know, has an end of life certificate from March 2016. Suffice to say it has been on life support since then. The unit has started to shut off spontaneously and we may have to stop doing echocardiograms here and transfer in-patients on ambulances to get echocardiograms elsewhere.’
He said he has placed a disclaimer on 2,500 patient reports because he couldn’t stand over the results
An internal email between departments from the HSE on June 13, 2016 and copied to Mr Thomas, asks for funding and says the machine was on the ‘obsolete list’.
‘This equipment was on the register of obsolete equipment. I realise you have allocated funding to Navan but is there a possibility of funding a replacement for this machine as it is increasingly becoming problematic and is resulting in delayed
‘I don’t want my name blemished’
scans and subsequent diagnosis.’
In the email of December 2, 2016, Dr Thomas says: ‘Please do the needful to get us our unit by early January as what we are doing with our current unit is morally unethical. We are doing studies on patients that are suboptimal and maybe missing things on patients and telling them that something is okay when it is not. We would not want that with ourselves or our family members and it’s unfair to others that we do that.’
In the latest email, Mr Thomas, as an example, says on one occasion the machine showed the presence of aortic stenosis (valve disease problem) but missed it in a repeat study. A clarification on a new machine confirmed aortic stenosis.
‘Therefore, it is my contention that there have been studies that have been substandard that have put the lives of patients at risk.’
Mr Thomas left his role at Navan after four years in June to take up a senior position in Lisbon in Portugal. Speaking from Portugal last week, he said he put the disclaimer on all reports from April 2016 to August 2017. Most of the patients, he said, were from Meath.
‘I read more than 4,000 studies internationally from hospitals across the world as a central independent reader based on specific criteria and the studies in Navan would not meet those criteria and that is why I kept ringing those alarm bells. I am absolutely sure that mistakes could have been made in reading patient reports because of very poor imagery.
‘This issue was one of the reasons I resigned. If something happens, it is now the responsibility of the Ireland East group. I don’t want my name or reputation blemished.’
In a statement, the HSE said: ‘An Echocardiogram is a very subjective diagnostic tool and can vary for several reasons depending on the patient being reviewed. All Echocardiograms conducted in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan where anomalies or visual complexities were identified were escalated for enhanced imaging and the referring consultant informed.
‘The Ireland East Hospital Group and management at Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, are satisfied following a full review of the circumstances surrounding this issue that there is no requirement to recall patients who had an Echocardiogram in the period referenced.’
Meanwhile, local Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, who raised the matter last April said: ‘I urge the HSE to restore confidence and make the results of their testing available or re-echo those who seek it, so that people can be sure of their true medical condition.’