Monday 2nd November. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has criticised suggestions from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) that surgeons should be drafted in to help in busy Emergency Departments if their operations are cancelled. 

Dr John Duddy, Vice President of the IMO said “We agree with RCSI, suggestions like this are neither practical nor feasible. The fundamental problem is that there is overcrowding in our hospitals which have insufficient bed capacity and this is manifesting itself in the crisis in our Emergency Departments. 

The problem is directly linked to shortage of hospital beds and rolling theatre closures. Having surgeons down at the ED won’t make any difference the efficiency of Emergency Departments when there are no beds to transfer the patients to and insufficient theatre time to operate on them. 

What we should be focusing on is the critical resources to ensure that the surgeons have the facilities and resources they need to do the job they are trained for so that patients can be treated and moved on through the system.”