Letterkenny General Hospital
UPDATED: LETTERKENNY HOSPITAL clinical director Paul O’Connor has confirmed that some nurses are being asked to help staff at Altnagelvin to deal with emergencies there.
Where nurses have dual registration which covers the North, they are being asked to help out in Derry, as reported on Donegal Daily yesterday.
Other hospital staff are going to work alongside GPs and NowDoc services in the county to help deal with minor ailments normally treated at the Emergency Department.
Sean Murphy, the hospital manager, also confirmed Donegal Daily’s story earlier that new equipment arrived last night and that he is hoping to have a standby emergency department ready within the next two weeks.
He thanked colleagues in Derry, Sligo and Enniskillen.
“We are going to provide staff to NowDoc from Saturday to deal with minor injuries to help relieve pressure on the other hospitals,” said Mr Murphy.
He went on: “We are working towards opening the interim Emergency Department (ED) as soon as possible. The mobile diagnostic units for X-ray and CT scans are on site and we have identified a location for them.
“The plans for the interim Emergency and Radiology Departments have been agreed with clinical staff and a contractor has been appointed. It will be a couple of weeks before these Departments are fully operational and I can assure you that we are working around the clock to make this happen as soon as possible.
“However some of this work is weather dependent. Patient safety and welfare is our paramount concern and we will only start to treat patients when we are absolutely sure that the interim ED can meet those criteria.
“From tomorrow morning we will be providing a minor injuries treatment service for patients who come through the NoWDOC service. This is not a walk-in service and we will only be able to treat patients who are referred to the hospital from NoWDOC. This is to ensure that patients who need treatment that we cannot currently provide are not sent to this hospital which would delay the necessary treatment.
“Since the ED at the hospital closed we advise that in the case of an emergency, you should call 999 or 112 and ask for the Ambulance Service. For all other situations requiring Emergency Department Services, we advise you contact your GP or GP out of hours service (NoWDOC) in the first instance.
“The efforts of all staff in dealing with the aftermath of the flood and the re-establishment of hospital services has been immense. I cannot emphasise enough the professionalism of all staff in the hospital. Two other key players in the recovery effort are Grainne McCann, General Manager of Sligo Regional Hospital and Elaine May, CEO of the Western Health and Social Care Trust. Letterkenny is an extremely busy hospital and it is a credit to Altnagelvin, the South West Acute and Sligo Hospitals that they have coped so well with the additional numbers of patients coming to their Emergency Departments.
“The Contingency Management Team remains in place at the hospital to manage the situation. It will be some time before we can confirm when all services will return to their previous levels. In the meantime, patients are being contacted individually to advise on alternative arrangements.
“I’d like to once more thank the local community and all of the agencies for their ongoing support and we ask the public for their continued patience and co-operation”, concluded Sean Murphy.