Stroke patients now diverted away from Navan Hospital

ANN CASEY
An emergency meeting of the Save Navan Hospital Committee will take place on Monday night to discuss a directive to avoid bringing stroke patients to Our Lady's Hospital.
A directive to ambulance personnel in force since Monday morning says that stroke patients will no longer be treated at Navan Hospital.
Since Monday, all stroke patients will be brought to the nearest stroke unit, in Drogheda, Cavan, Dublin or Mullingar and anyone presenting at Our Lady's Hospital in Navan will be transferred to another hospital.
Deputy Peadar Tóibín of the Save Navan Hospital Committee warned that the new moves could lead to critical delays in the treatment of patients, while local GPs were critical of the fact that the first they heard of the new protocol was through the media.
The emergency meeting of the hospital campaign will take place in the Newgrange Hotel at 8pm on Monday.
The directive to the ambulance service states: “Patients with signs and symptoms of stroke (including transient ischaemic attacks) should not be brought to Our Lady's Hospital, Navan.” 

“Instead these patients should be transported to the next nearest hospital emergency department that provides stroke thrombolysis.”
It adds that all “self-presenting patients to Navan with subsequent confirmed stroke” will be brought by ambulance to the Mater Hospital.
Deputy Peadar Tóibín, chairman of the Save Navan Hospital Committee warned the move would cause a delay in patients being treated.
“Our ambulance service is already overstretched and this move means that despite the fact that time is critical in the treatment of stroke, patients will have to travel further and may get tied up in Dublin traffic.”
Navan has had a good track record of treating stroke.

“Patients had CT on admission and would receive thrombolysis. In 2016 and 2017 63 stroke patients were treated in Navan.
“The purpose of Monday night's meeting is to have this decision reversed and to ensure there is further investment and strengthening of services in Navan Hospital,” he said.
Navan GP, Seamus McMenamin said there had never been a dedicated stroke unit in Navan, but patients had received the necessary treatment for stoke. “Someone presenting in Navan would have been treated appropriately.”
He pointed out that there aren't enough stroke units, and that speed is extremely important in the treatment of stroke.
“Time is very important and it can take anything up to an hour for an ambulance to arrive and then if they have to bring the patients further afield, the golden hour in which a patient should be treated will be lost,” he said

Dr McMenamin was concerned that the first he had heard of the new protocol was through the media. 
“There is a major lack of communication and doctors shouldn't have to find out from the media that protocols have changed.”
A GP needs to be able to talk their patient through what is going to happen. Patients ask questions and they expect their doctors to be able to answer them but we are not getting the information,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Ireland East Hospital Group said it aims to consistently deliver safe services to its population.
“Based on the advice of the National Clinical Programme for Stroke (NCPS), the Ireland East Hospital Group (IEHG) can confirm that patient's suffering with acute stroke will bypass Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, from Monday,” said a spokesperson.
“As per the National Ambulance operating procedure, any patient fitting the stroke criteria will be transported to the closest appropriate stroke facility nearest the patient’s location. This new model of service delivery will improve patient safety and outcomes,” he predicted.”