Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

We want to know what is happening in Cork University Hospital in terms of the relationship between management and consultants. We also want to know whether the contents of a leaked e-mail are true. I suspect the Minister will tell us this evening that the consultants and management at Cork University Hospital have resolved their differences and are now moving on and getting on with their job. That is not good enough. Either management or the consultant was wrong. We need to know the truth; the public has a right to know.

There were disturbing reports in the Irish Examiner at the start of the week, with extracts from a leaked e-mail written by a consultant plastic surgeon, Mr. Jason Kelly, who described the hospital as being in crisis and miserably failing patients:

The article states:

The correspondence [. . .] highlights how on just one shift, one critically ill woman was left without morphine on an A&E trolley after undergoing an emergency breast removal. A second patient, a 70-year-old, had to wait five hours for an emergency amputation of her forearm after a "devastating injury"." The email describes how the 42-year-old woman "was admitted with a full thickness burn to her left breast and arm pit — it resembled a battlezone injury. She spent the night outside the plaster room in A&E. She did not get any morphine and her dressings were inadequate. She was also critically ill and did not receive adequate nursing care". Similar incidents at A&E "have happened before", the surgeon wrote, and "I have taken them through the usual channels without any obvious resolution". The surgeon says problems at the hospital need to be "fixed immediately".

He expresses concern at the proposal to move breast cancer services from the South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital to CUH, adding a further 300 or 400 breast cancer patients a year when its operating theatres cannot cope with the existing workload. What is happening at CUH? Is it true that the hospital cannot deal with its existing workload? Is it the case that the two patients were treated as outlined in the e-mail?

All consultants at CUH held an emergency meeting following the publication of the article in the Irish Examiner on Monday. They formally backed their colleague, standing over the claims that were made. The response from management at the CUH stated that the accusations were erroneous and inaccurate. We want to know if the Minister of State is satisfied with the resolution agreed.

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