Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has asked the HSE to assign a specialist emergency department team to Letterkenny University Hospital.
The request comes amid crisis calls from a group of consultants and 78 Donegal-based GPs, demanding urgent interventions and a review of the emergency department.
Medics have expressed grave concerns for patient safety as the hospital ED faces relentless overcrowding.
Donegal Minister Charlie McConalogue has said that the HSE’s specialist ED team, if deployed, will examine current challenges and management of the department.
Meanwhile, Minister Donnelly is due to meet with representatives of the Donegal GPs next week.
An Tánaiste Micheal Martin said that the Minister is “very concerned” with the issues raised in the correspondence from Donegal GPs.
Mr Martin told Thomas Pringle last week that Letterkenny University Hospital is seeing a post-Covid increase in attendance, which also reflects the growing and ageing population.
Mr Martin said: “I note that the letter relates to access to the emergency department but we need to look not just specifically at the emergency department but the entire continuum from primary care to community care to diagnostics and the wider hospital group. That is a management issue locally and regionally under the Saolta University Health Care Group in how hospitals are organised, how patients are triaged and how patients are referred to various services.”
