A group of senior consultants at Letterkenny University Hospital have called on the Health Minister to speed up the proposed upgrade to Intensive Care facilities.
The situation at present, they said, “represents a serious risk to critically ill patients in Donegal”.
A letter to Minister Stephen Donnelly, signed by 16 consultants, urges him to immediately approve the necessary funds for the redevelopment of the ICU.
The ICU at LUH consists of five critical care beds with a sixth overflow bed on a separate floor. The unit incorporates just a single isolation room and no High Dependency Unit (HDU).
Consultants also pointed out that the ICU at Letterkenny is one of the few remaining units of a similar size that lacks an electronic Clinical Information System (CIS). Paper-based systems became obsolete at least 20 years ago, they wrote.
Seeking a meeting with the Minister, they said that LUH is “clearly disadvantaged” and underfunded by millions.
Speaking in the Dáil, Sinn Féin Deputy Padraig MacLochlainn said the upgrade must be delivered urgently.
“When you look at Letterkenny as a Model 3 hospital, compared with all other M3 hospitals in the state, we are failed by the block funding,” he said.
“I am asking you Minister, to consider if Letterkenny should be upgraded to a Model 4 hospital.”
Deputy MacLochlainn urged the Minister to engage and meet with consultants, and to approve their request for an interim arrangement needed to provide 10 ICU and HDU beds on a temporary basis.
Long-term plans for an upgrade to the ICU were first proposed in the hospital Development Control Plan (DCP) approximately 15 years ago.
Last year, 78 Donegal GPs, subsequently backed by 11 consultants, sent letters to Minister Donnelly outlining grave concerns and calling for an external review and action plan at LUH.
