The Health Service Executive (HSE) has denied claims by the former Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) President, Dr Christine O’Malley, that bed managers are preventing inter-hospital transfers of seriously ill patients.
A HSE statement said: “The decision on whether or not to admit a patient who is in need of urgent treatment to hospital is made by clinicians and not bed-managers… It is incorrect to suggest that bed management decisions are taken that deliberately delay patients longer than is necessary in intensive care units.”
The HSE said urgent cases are prioritised and it denied bed allocations are made in order to improve trolley figures in accident and emergency departments.
Last month, Dr O’Malley said she was considering her future in the health service because she could not get her patients transferred to other hospitals. The Nenagh General Hospital consultant geriatrician claimed that, even though doctors in other hospitals agreed to take her patients, they were being overruled by bed managers.
Responding to the HSE statement, she told Irish Medical Times that health service administrators appeared to be unaware of the impact of administrative decisions on clinical outcome. “In practice a clinician’s decisions is overruled by the administrative system that is in place,” she said.
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