NI Criticised over Outsourcing Heart Operations

Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke has criticised the Department of Health over cardiac surgery costs.

According to the BBC, the cost of sending people outside Northern Ireland for heart operations has triple in the past three years.

The reasons provided for this is that the Department of Health says spending in the region of £7 million on the service helps to keep waiting lists down.

However, this has prompted a response from NICHS Chief Excecutive Andrew Dougal, who believes that that money should be going towards improving the services in Northern Ireland.

He stated “…we want to see that money invested in producing additional jobs in the Royal Victoria Hospital so that in three years time everybody who needs an operation for their heart will have that in Northern Ireland.”

In addition to the cost of a heart operation in England, £14,000, there are also the costs of the travel fees and accommodation for families.

Taking this in to account it is certainly clear to see why Mr Dougal is opposed to the current spending. If Northern Ireland is able to invest in its own services and improve the quality of treatment available then this will be of great benefit to the country and should cut down on waiting lists as the additional staffing will mean that hospitals are able to handle a greater number of patients. However, the other side of the coin is that it does not seem at the moment that Northern Ireland has the capacity to cope with such volumes of patients.

As a consequence, the risk of medical experts making mistakes or errors which could cause injury or even loss of life is obviously going to increase when they are overworked and under resourced. Perhaps a compromise would be for those wishing to undertake heart operations in England to be asked to foot the travel fees and accommodation for their trip, meaning that less money will be outsourced and Northern Ireland can invest those funds in to improving their own capabilities.