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Tallaght x-ray failure almost beyond belief

Issued : Tuesday 9 March, 2010

The disclosure that 57,000 x-rays taken at Tallaght Hospital were not reviewed by a consultant radiologist is almost beyond belief and shows that there are still serious problems with the adequacy of procedures in our hospitals.

We had been assured that the sort of systemic failures that came to light in earlier years had ended and it is shocking that the health and welfare of patients has again been put at risk by a systems failure that should never have been allowed to happen. What is of particular concern is that the practice in Tallaght was allowed to continue up to as recently as three months ago.

We now have another situation where the diagnosis of patients with serious conditions was missed and treatment delayed. We will never know if an earlier diagnosis might have saved the life of the patient who has since died.

I am also alarmed that the review of the outstanding x-rays will not be completed until May. The patients involved deserve far better that this and additional staff should be brought in to allow the process to be completed within the next few weeks.

I also believe that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) should be allowed to undertake an immediate investigation to establish exactly what happened to allow such a failure to occur and to make recommendations to ensure that it can never happen again.