A REPORT published by medical consultants in all Cork city public and private hospitals has called for up to 28 permanent posts in eight separate disciplines to be filled without delay.
The consultants group was established last year under the aegis of University College Cork to draw up a response to a review of senior medical staffing in the Southern Health Board area which was conducted by Comhairle na nOspideal. This review had found the SHB region to be understaffed relative to other health boards.
Presenting its report this week, Prof William John Hall, Dean of Medicine at UCC, said the group was concerned that key consultancies in the city were underresourced.
These included medicine - there is no consultant oncologist in Cork's public hospitals; surgery - the need for the appointment of new consultant plastic surgeons to cope with accident and emergency cases; psychiatry - the absence of a liaison psychiatric consultant, and the need to create posts in psycho/geriatric and child psychiatric care.
Prof Hall said that in paediatrics the consultants' group had called for the establishment of a neo natal intensive care unit in the city and the creation of specialist posts in infertility as well as uro-dynamics in obstetrics and gynaecology.
In anaesthesia, the report stressed that three consultants serving the Bantry and Mallow areas would retire this summer.
Prof Hall added that services in pathology were overloaded and called for at least two new consultant appointments. The report also called for a chair of microbiology at UCC.
Prof Hall said: "In the early 1990s, Comhairle na nOspideal said that at least 28 consultant posts needed to be filled. That situation has not changed much in the interim and we are now seeking to have these posts filled immediately.
"The latest report is an important stage in the formulation of a strategy for the future of medical consultant staffing levels in Cork into the century. It is raising a flat, for consultant services in the region. It will now be presented to the hospital managers in the city and to the Minister for Health, and we will be hoping to see some positive action.