Letterkenny: A consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Letterkenny General Hospital who has had to postpone elective surgery on patients over each of the past three weeks due to bed shortages said it was ridiculous that lack of planning had resulted in him being paid to remain idle.
Peter O'Rourke said extra services had been developed at Letterkenny hospital in recent years, but lack of planning meant additional beds hadn't been put in place to match them. This meant there were often no beds at the hospital for patients due to undergo surgery and their operations had to be cancelled.
He also said it was "farcical" that once patients had waited three months for surgery they could be referred to the State-funded National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), which would arrange treatment privately. "The NTPF will be the providers of most surgical care the way things are developing," he said.
The problem was due to a shortage of hospital beds rather than because surgeons were not working around the clock and "flexible". If there were no beds for patients after operations during the day, there would be none at night, he said.
Mr O'Rourke was able to carry out elective surgery yesterday afternoon for the first Monday in three weeks.
"The Government is paying me a large sum of money to sit around doing nothing . . . It beggars belief that they can pay me for doing nothing while at the same time they're pouring money into the NTPF which means that, effectively, they're paying for everything twice," he said.
Chris Lyons, the hospital's general manager, said the problem would only be resolved if approval was given for extra beds.
(Additional reporting by Harry Walsh)