LEO’S ‘INSULT’
Doctor joins criticism of taoiseach over trolley crisis remarks
A SENIOR doctor slammed the Taoiseach yesterday for blaming hospital overcrowding on employees taking time off.
Dr Mike O’connor said: “It’s bordering on disingenuous and insulting to the staff to suggest significant tranches of the HSE roster themselves for extended holiday periods over Christmas.”
The Clinical Medical Director at Cork University Hospital added it was “inconceivable” to think workers would be on leave over the festive season.
While this may have happened 20 or 25 years ago, he insisted it would no longer be permitted.
Dr O’connor told RTE’S Morning Ireland: “We have a fantastic workforce who know what happens over the Christmas period and prime themselves for it because intense.”
This winter, the hospital’s key plan includes expanding the presence of senior decision makers on-call and on-site.
It will also maximise discharge options leading up to Christmas when patients want to go home for the it is a little bit more holidays, thereby creating space admissions over the busiest period.
Dr O’connor said less than 10% of the consultants at CUH will be on holiday in January.
And while he admitted the Christmas period could get hectic, he said it was wrong to treat it as very different from the rest of the year. The physician for added: “One of the errors we make in the health services is we talk about ‘winter pressures’.
“There are 40,000 people this year who will spend more than 24 hours on a trolley. To characterise it as a sort of November to February phenomenon really is bogus and disingenuous to the citizens of the State.”
CUH has around 70,000 emergency department attendances – or nine people per hour – every year.
Mr Varadkar came under fire this week after he told the Dail consultants, nurses and other medical professionals should not be on extended leave over Christmas and the New Year.
His comments were seen to suggest hospital overcrowding problems were caused by staff going on holiday.