The HSE has confirmed that all acute and emergency surgery is to end at Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.
Orthopaedic surgery at the hospital is not affected.
The announcement was made at a meeting between management and staff at the hospital this afternoon.
In a statement, the executive said all acute and emergency surgery will cease at the hospital immediately. “The decision has been made in the interest of providing the highest quality of service to patients and following expert clinical advice,” it said.
It said the A&E department will continue to function on a 24-hour basis.
Anyone needing surgery will be transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Cavan General Hospital, the Mater, Beaumont or Connolly hospital in Blanchardstown.
It said this would be an interim arrangement until capacity is increased at Drogheda.
The executive announced in February that complex trauma patients in the Meath area requiring surgical intervention would be taken by ambulance directly to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Co Louth, or the nearest appropriate hospital, not first to Navan, Co Meath.
Patients due for surgery today at Navan are being diverted to Drogheda.
Some 18,000 people attended the A&E department at the hospital last year. Navan is now the fourth-largest town in the State.
Irish Nurses and Midwives Association spokesman Tony Fitzpatrick, who was at the briefing, said staff had been told that general surgery was to end at the hospital. He said staff were absolutely furious that they had not been properly briefed on plans before this morning.
Nursing staff expressed concern at the meeting that they had not been told that patients due to receive surgery at the hospital over the coming days will now be diverted to other hospitals.
Mr Fitzpatrick said there was general anger at the meeting that management was unable to answer basic questions about the future of jobs or services at the hospital.
Staff having coffee and cigarettes outside the building earlier in the morning were reluctant to speak to reporters but said they did not know exactly what was due to be announced.
Dr Niall Maguire, secretary of the Meath faculty of the Irish College of General Practitioners said he believed the hospital would be totally wound down.
“We are aware over the last two weeks or so that laparascopic surgery has stopped. That was a very retrograde step for the people of Co Meath because a lot of surgery these days is laparascopic, and a lot of emergency surgery is laparascopic,” he said.
“But overnight, we became aware that all acute surgery and all elective surgery other than very minor local anaesthetic-types of surgery and scopes will be stopped also. So, effectively this place is going to become a cottage hospital.”
Dr Maguire said he had been kept apprised of a meeting taking place last night and that the “worst fears” had now been confirmed.
“Surgery is effectively ended in Navan, even though the spin that will be put on it is that there will be day surgery. But Navan has been shown, by virtue of its own audit data, which I have seen, and also by virtue of the Capital report of 2009 to be a perfectly safe environment and these surgeons highly competent to undertake all basic and intermediate-level surgery.”
Siptu shop steward Margi Dunne said she was “very angry” at how the issue had been handled. She said union representatives had been assured at a meeting with HSE in management in June that Navan hospital was not in danger.
Ms Dunne, who lives in Navan, has worked at the hospital for 26 years and said she and all her family had been treated there at some point. “It has provided a brilliant service. We have three fine surgeons here. They operated on my husband seven years ago and only for them he would not be here today.”
Labour’s health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said the Government originally promised a new hospital at Navan. “Instead, what we are getting is the destruction of Navan Hospital by a thousand cuts,” she said.
She said the decision to divert people to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda was “inexplicable”, as Drogheda was already under severe pressure.
Fine Gael TD Damien English said the decision to remove surgery from the hospital was “a disgrace”.
“This policy of downgrading Navan hospital makes no sense, especially when services are being transferred to hospitals which are already at over-capacity. These decisions are being taken for purely political reasons.”
Local Sinn Féin councillor Joe Reilly, who waited outside the hospital for news today, expressed concern about the downgrading of services, including psychiatric services.
In April, the executive tried to make all four surgeons at the hospital sign a document stating only certain types of surgery would be performed at the 172-bed hospital. The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) met the executive to express concern about the policy and it has not been implemented to date.
The hospital was ordered to stop all keyhole surgery earlier this month following an internal audit and all laparoscopic general surgery to remove appendix and gallstones or to deal with hernias could no longer take place at the hospital as a result.