Minister for health opens new radiology suite in cavan general
The Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, is in Cavan Town this afternoon to officially opened the new Interventional Radiology Suite in Cavan General Hospital, which is now part of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RSCI) Hospitals Group.
Speaking at the official opening Minister Varadkar said:“The development of a dedicated Interventional Radiology Suite at Cavan and Monaghan Hospital has resulted in very significant service improvement for patients in this area. Interventional Radiology is one of the fastest growing fields in modern medicine providing cutting edge minimally invasive image-guided therapies to patients with a wide range of medical and surgical conditions.”
The minister's visit to Cavan comes about six weeks after the HSE confirmed that almost 3,000 scans and xrays undertaken by locum radiologists at the hospital were reviewed. Sixty-two patients were recalled, with no serious adverse events reported.
The Interventional Radiology service commenced in the Cavan & Monaghan Hospital group in August 2012 and has been further enhanced by the appointment of two dedicated Consultant Interventional Radiologists.
The new Interventional Radiology Suite was secured with an investment of €1m part funded by the HSE National Medical Equipment Replacement Programme for 2014. The new suite represents significant progress and development within Cavan and Monaghan Hospital, which has been completed in recent years despite the difficult economic climate.
This state-of-the-art technology provides for a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic interventional radiology procedures benefiting both adult and paediatric patients. Procedures include angioplasty, stenting and spinal intervention together with full routine fluoroscopic diagnostic examinations such as speech and language studies, barium studies, and others.
Speaking about the service Dr Michael Slattery, Clinical Lead of Radiology and Consultant Interventional Radiologist, said: “The range of new procedures offered in Cavan & Monaghan Hospital is extensive including the placement of medical devices to support the delivery of medical therapies, including chemotherapy to cancer patients and the provision of a vascular access service to support renal dialysis patients. The Interventional Radiology Unit also provides a cutting edge pain management service specialising in the treatment of back pain and sciatica for which there is an increasing demand. In many cases Interventional Radiology can replace more invasive procedures and minimises clinical risk to patients. Furthermore, the patient’s recovery time is shorter than with conventional surgery. Going forward there are plans to further develop and expand this important new service.”
Acknowledging the funding from the HSE and the effort of all staff in the department, Bridget Clarke, General Manager, Cavan & Monaghan Hospital said: “This service has already yielded significant benefits to both inpatients and outpatients in our catchment area. These patients previously had to travel to larger hospitals in Dublin to avail of these services or underwent more invasive surgical procedures locally, and in some cases requiring procedures to be carried out in the operating theatre. To date hundreds of patients have benefited from these new techniques.”
For a detailed interview with the Minister for Health in Cavan on the recent radiology review and the ongoing baby death reviews at the hospital, see next week's paper.