THE HSE has refuted claims that Bantry General Hospital was closed to ambulance presentations last Sunday, dismissing reports online that services in West Cork were pulled for eight hours on Sunday.

By Kieran O’Mahony and Jackie Keogh

A HSE spokesperson told The Southern Star that while the hospital was ‘extremely busy’ over the weekend at no point was it closed to ambulance presentations.

‘For a short period, a number of lower acuity cases were diverted to other facilities, in order to protect capacity at the Medical Assessments Unit for emergencies.’

They stressed that during this ‘short time period’ the hospital continued to accept ‘urgent’ ambulance presentations.

Fine Gael Senator Noel O’Donovan said the information which surfaced online was ‘factually incorrect’ and ‘scaremongering’.

He pointed out that there was no reduction in ambulances in West Cork and because Bantry General Hospital was dealing with so many patients they requested that less acute needs in ambulances be diverted to CUH.

‘But urgent cases would be still be taken,’ he stressed.

‘This [scaremongering] may have led to people being afraid to ring 999 for an ambulance. This is misinformation here.’

He said this was normal operational procedure and that the Mercy Hospital in Cork city often has to divert ambulances to CUH.

Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan concurred that that the diversion was ‘normal operational protocol’.

However Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins said no operational protocol could justify diverting ambulanaces given Bantry’s 161km distance from the next available hospital. ‘The responses I have heard does little to address the real concerns raised by local communities,’ he added.

Separately, a locum arrangement at SouthDoc in Clonakilty prompted complaints from councillors at a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District on Monday.

Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) raised the issue saying he had seen an internal document that showed there was no staff GP rostered to deal with any emergency that may have arisen on a particular day.

Following comments online and speculation that the service is being diminished by stealth, the Independent Ireland councillor told the meeting a locum was then engaged to cover the date.

Cllr Sexton said more and more people are being referred to Bandon, or sent to the city for medical assistance, and he asked if they were making ‘cuts by stealth’ to ‘save a few bob?’

His request that the local authority write to both SouthDoc and the Health Service Executive and ask them bluntly ‘what’s going on?’ was approved by the other municipal district members.

Both Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) and Cllr Brendan McCarthy (FG) said they had repeatedly flagged concerns about access to the Skibbereen SouthDoc. Cllr McCarthy said they had expressed concerns about regular hours being disrupted and people being sent to Bandon and Bantry, despite the very high levels of flu.

In response to a request for comment from The Southern Star HSE South West said SouthDoc was an independent co-operative which has a service level agreement with the HSE to provide out-of-hours GP cover to medical card holders.

A spokesperson added: ‘SouthDoc have informed us that rostering arrangements were in place across the entire region over the Christmas period to allow for adequate cover for the population, as well as facilitating time off for GPs.’

The spokesperson said this arrangement was ‘consistent with previous years’ and cover for Clonakilty was provided by a locum which ‘again is consistent with the approach in other areas. Full cover was in place for Clonakilty for Christmas and the New Year period.’