Long-awaited report over mortuary services at Waterford hospital finally released
The new mortuary at UHW, which was finally built after the Waterford News & Star revealed major inadequacies in the former facility at UHW.
A new report has painted a damning picture of the HSE’s handling of the mortuary services at University Hospital Waterford (UHW).
The report had been commissioned in 2019, after the horrendous conditions of the morgue gained national attention.
In 2019, the mortuary made national headlines, after its appalling conditions were revealed in an exclusive story published by the Waterford News & Star.
Bodies were kept in unrefrigerated conditions to decompose, with bodily fluids leaking onto the floor.
In some cases, families could not hold wakes for their loved ones due to severe decomposition.
The conditions of the mortuary were flagged numerous times by hospital management.
In 2003, the HSE Estates Department claimed that the site was ‘unfit for purpose’ after visiting the building.
In 2018, four Consultant Pathologists wrote to then CEO of the South/South West Hospital Group (SSWHG) Gerry O’Dwyer outlining the desperate conditions of the mortuary and the urgent need for it to be upgraded.
Then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar called the situation “strange” and that “no evidence has been brought forward to support the claim that dead bodies were decomposing on corridors”.
He apologised for his comments a few days later after UHW received a serious complaint that confirmed the issues.
In the years since the report’s commission, many questions have been asked regarding its status, both in and outside the Dáil.
Neither UHW nor the Department of Health received the report, which contained 39 recommendations regarding mortuary services at University Hospital Waterford.
The report also criticised hospital management for their interaction with the independent review group.
TD Matt Shanahan told Waterford News & Star: “Each year the funding application had been made to the HSE head office because it had been noted for some time that the mortuary in Waterford was just not up to par. It had been built in the last 10, 15 years and the whole rate of activity increased dramatically during those years.
“I have highlighted in my time at the Dáil the level of dysfunction that went on within the SSWHG in terms of funding UHW activity, it appeared to me to be a very self-interested aspect on the part of the group.” “You had four pathologists in Waterford who in one year had done 600 postmortems, and 12 pathologists in CUH (Cork University Hospital) who had done 800 postmortems.” Deputy Shanahan credits the core issue to the “dysfunction” not only in the HSE, but also the SSWHG.
“I've seen in the media reports to dysfunction that has been accredited to HSE, but I would say it runs deeper than that, and there was absolutely total dysfunction within the Southwest hospital group where people who were at the vanguard of HSE Southwest were basically funneling money into their preferred systems and into their preferred people.” He called for accountability and transparency within the HSE, as did fellow Waterford TD and Sinn Féin’s national spokesperson for health David Cullinane.
Deputy Cullinane stated: “This raises very serious issues about due process, accountability and transparency. The purpose of a review is to establish facts, make recommendations and report to senior decision-makers. What is the point in commissioning a review if it does not achieve its objectives?”
