Patient health could be at risk in the new Tallaght hospital if it opens as planned on June 21st, according to nurses' and hospital consultants' groups. The Irish Nurses' Organisation and the Hospital Consultants' Association warned that doctors and nurses were losing confidence in the £130 million facility and its ability to maintain medical standards and patient safety if it opens on schedule.
They have sought urgent meetings with the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen..
Staffing levels, in particular the number of nurses employed, are among their major concerns. According to the INO, a Department of Health report recommended the employment of an extra 318 nursing staff, in addition to those employed in the three base hospitals: the Meath, Adelaide and National Children's Hospital. But only 20 new posts have been sanctioned, said Mr Rory Costello, INO industrial relations officer.
Even if management sanctioned all additional 300 posts today, he said, they could not fill them because of the nursing shortage, particularly accident and emergency and theatre nurses.
Mr Costello said only four of the hospital's 12 operating theatres could be used when it opened because there were too few nursing staff.
"We have signed up to co-operate with the opening date but we would have to question whether the range of services will be in place by June 21st," he said.
Consultants, members of the hospital's medical board, recently drew up a report in which they considered it unsafe to move to the hospital on June 21st because it would not be ready.
Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, IHCA secretary-general, told The Irish Times there were more than 20 building projects "big and small" still incomplete, including the outpatients department, the multi-storey car-park and work on the sterilisation system for the theatres.
"It is tragic that the flagship hospital in the State, which has cost so much already, is losing the confidence of many members of the public and the majority of doctors and nurses moving out there. The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, appears to have little interest in the project. He only visited it for the first time a few weeks ago."
In recent months several nursing staff had left the three base hospitals to work elsewhere because of the "concern and confusion" over the move to Tallaght, Mr Costello said.
He added there was pressure on trade union officials to "pull the plug". "There is huge scepticism from staff on the ground. This was expressed very vociferously at a cross-union meeting - SIPTU, INO, IMPACT and the trade groups - last Tuesday. But we will go ahead. I think it would almost be too convenient at this stage for us to be the ones to say we won't move for June 21st."
Mr Fitzpatrick said management response to concerns from the hospital's medical board was to appeal for the transfer of psychiatric patients from St Loman's Hospital to be deferred until next year for clinical and logistical reasons. "But despite the concerns that move is now going ahead following intervention from the Minister for Health," said Mr Fitzpatrick.
There is also concern about equipment for the hospital. There appears to be confusion about what equipment has arrived, and some is still, according to one source, "on the high seas".