Concerns raised over €400,000 machine lying idle at Galway hospital

A €400,000 machine purchased for the urology department at University Hospital Galway over 18 months ago has “never been put into service”, consultants at the hospital have said.

Five consultants have written to Minister for Health James Reilly to raise their concerns about an extracorporeal shockwave lithotriptor (ESWL), bought for the hospital in February 2010 to treat patients with conditions such as kidney stones.

In a letter sent to the Minister at the end of last month, consultant urologists Michael Corcoran, Eamon Rogers, Killian Walsh, Syed Jaffry and Garrett Durkan said the machine had never been put into service as radiographers to facilitate the treatments were never allocated by management.

“This decision has been to the detriment of patients with stone disease in the region,” they said.

The doctors said because the ESWL treatment was not being provided, there has been an “over-reliance on invasive procedures” at the hospital, as well as delayed treatment for those in chronic pain and increased admissions to the emergency department. Some patients were also having to travel to Tallaght hospital for ESWL treatment there.

“In the meantime, an ESWL machine purchased at taxpayers’ expense, lies idle and depreciates,” they said.

The hospital is a tertiary referral centre for people with complex urological diseases and it receives referrals from Letterkenny, Sligo, Castlebar, Roscommon and Portiuncula hospitals.

The doctors said the machine had now been “cannibalised and allocated without discussion” to Merlin Park Regional Hospital for “exclusive use” by its radiology department, which already had sufficient equipment. “The background to this event is such that it warrants full investigation and due consideration,” the doctors said.

They said the decision had been made by Health Service Executive Galway clinical director David O’Keeffe, who is also a director of a private imaging company on the grounds of Merlin Park.

“It is nothing short of scandalous in the current financial times that the HSE would waste €400,000 on a piece of equipment and then render it unusable by cannibalising it for the use of a department which clearly doesn’t need it,” the doctors said.

In a statement, the HSE said the machine cost €265,000 excluding VAT. It said by the time the machine was procured, staffing at the hospital had changed, with significant reductions nursing and radiology staff numbers.

“It was not possible to provide the service from the existing staff resources as originally planned,” the statement said.

“The equipment is currently being used for interventional radiology at the Merlin Park site and the intention is to provide lithotripsy as soon as resources allow.”