Shock at cut in cover at Caithness General
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NHS Highland belatedly revealed that it has for the meantime axed surgical cover at Caithness General Hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Officials say the move is in response to the chronic staffing shortage being experienced at the Wick hospital and could give no assurance when the 24/7 cover would be restored.
Community representatives reacted with concern to the development, especially as they had not been told about it at recent briefings from the health authority. They repeated calls on NHS Highland to be more open about the future of services at the hospital.
No public announcement was made about the change to a 24/5 regime for surgical cover at the hospital.
Health chiefs insist it is not a major problem given that the need for overnight surgery at Wick is very limited.
The first indication that there had been a change was contained in papers going before Tuesday’s NHS Highland board meeting in Inverness with a reference to the staffing crisis at Caithness General necessitating a “contingency plan” to kick in.
North and west director of operations Gill McVicar acknowledged round-the-clock surgical provision at the hospital was no longer possible on a Tuesday or Wednesday night given the dearth of permanent consultants in post.
“Out of the 12 consultant posts at the hospital, we only have four who are in substantive roles at the moment,” she said. “It is still a fragile situation so we had no option but to put a contingency plan in place.
“What that means is we’ve got Raigmore consultants, physicians and surgeons rotating at Caithness General every weekend and all weekends are currently covered.
“But surgeons are not available during Tuesday and Wednesday night. There is no surgeon on call because there is not the staff available to fill those positions.”
Mrs McVicar said during these two nights, emergency generalists at the hospital get advice from back-up staff at the Inverness hospital about what to do should an issue arise.
She said the surgical provision at Caithness General is being evaluated as part of the county-wide redesign of health services currently taking place. Mrs McVicar said the health authority is looking to hire locum surgeons to cover shifts, where possible. “When we dug underneath the issue, it wasn’t so much surgery people were worried about; they were worried about what would happen in a dire emergency,” she said.
“Ron Coggins, clinical lead for surgery at Raigmore, has been helping with the situation in Caithness and he is clear that it is not overnight surgical cover which is the issue.
“Surgeons would not normally operate overnight unless it was a dire emergency.
“The cases he would describe as a dire emergency would be referred to Raigmore anyway because of the support patients would require. There is very little surgery which happens overnight in any case.”
Wick Highland councillor Bill Fernie was unaware of the loss of surgical services overnight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays even though Mrs McVicar had given a private briefing to the Caithness and Sutherland area committee in Wick last week.
He said NHS Highland needs to be more open about a situation, which is causing great concern in the area.
Representatives from NHS Highland are expected to take part in a public meeting at the Pentland Hotel in Thurso at 7pm on Tuesday to answer questions about the future of health services in Caithness.
