The system I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, but at the hospital mentioned the Consultants do a one in eight on-call and there are two of them. Thus in 6 out of 8 nights the dept. does not have a consultant on-call, again I may be wrong.
I was single handed for 3 years and before that 2 years in my consultant career of 14 years (you can draw your own inferences ie nobody wants to work with me!!).
Nevertheless I did have an arrangement that if there were any such patients irrespective of who was the designated consultant and there were problems I would try to sort them out. I nipped any problems in the bud I hope.
What I find so sad about the case is that it is a centre that, in my opinion is being held up as a beacon of excellence and yet the sort of case that I have frequently alluded to has slipped through the net and the consequences are so very tragic.
It happens when Senior Staff are diverted away from the potentially serious cases to massage stastitics and only the senior clinicians and I emphasise the word clinicians as opposed to the quasi acaedemics have the expertise to state this obvious fact.
Danny McGeehan
|