Emergency Department ‘Hitlist’ Dr Fergal Hickey reveals the facts

On 10th July 2016 a front-page report in the Sunday Business Post appeared under the heading ‘A&E Hitlist’ The article, based on a leaked Department of Health Expert Group draft report on the Management of Major Trauma suggested that, in future, patients with major trauma would no longer be brought by ambulance to Emergency Departments in hospitals that did not have in-patient orthopaedic surgery on site was combined with other articles in the SBP and gave the misleading impression that the nine hospitals identified would lose their Emergency Departments rather than simply not receive this very small proportion of their day-to-day workload that major trauma represents. The report and the inference that nine Emergency Departments would close as a result provoked a storm of controversy. IAEM Communications Officer, Dr Fergal Hickey, was interviwed on a variety of radio programmes and explained what was intended by the recommendation.

July 2016