Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I live in Drogheda, issues relating to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital are of great concern to me and my constituents. As Deputy Naughten notes, we have been here before. In fact, there is a major sense of déjà vuabout the new revelations regarding cases of misdiagnosis. A report in the Irish Independentof 5 November 2008 related that nine cancer patients had their diagnosis delayed and one of them, who had since died, had missed a major chance of a cure for her cancer. This has been a problem for some time.

I am concerned at the lack of a dynamic within the HSE to deal with this issue. Heads must roll as a consequence of what has happened. How were the three consultants involved, one of whom worked in three or four of the hospitals, allowed into the system when they were not fit for purpose? A Google search of the literature indicates that significant mistakes can occur in reading around radiology, with an error rate of 2% to 20% indicated. However, we were assured that this would never happen again. Given that we know three doctors were involved, why has only one misdiagnosis case been reported in the media? Will the Minister explain that?

When was the Medical Council informed about this issue and what is it doing about it? Why is it the case, as reported in The Irish Times, that the doctors concerned cannot be brought back to this country by mandamusto be interrogated as to what happened? Either we are hiring consultants by way of a Google search or we have proper supervision and procedures in place. The fault here does not lie with the Minister but with the HSE, which is not delivering for patients in this regard.

Is the technology in these hospitals fit for purpose? In other words, is it possible that some of these errors occurred because the technology in use was not the best available in the marketplace? What protocols will be put in place to ensure that more than one set of eyes is cast over these scans, to use the Minister's phrase in an interview he gave earlier today? If it is necessary to send scans to specialists outside the State for a second read, then that is what we should do.

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