€250,000 cost to keep man ‘prisoner’ in hospital ward

Date Published: 01-Jul-2010

By Dara Bradley

The HSE has spent up to €250,000 hiring a private security firm to prevent a man in the city from leaving a hospital ward where he is being treated for an acute TB condition.

The Galway City Tribune revealed in June last year that the man, who is in his 30s, was being forcibly detained at an isolation unit at University Hospital Galway (UHG) because it was feared he could spread the highly infectious disease if allowed into the community.

The Galway City Tribune has now learned that – approximately 18 months after he was first detained – the patient is still living in an isolated unit at the city hospital and is still being guarded by security personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The patient has on previous occasions left hospital during the course of treatment for the disease which is now curable. Previous efforts to treat the patient ended in failure when he left the hospital against the advice and instructions of medics.

The patient has a record of absconding from hospital care and the Health Service Executive (HSE) are fearful that he could spread the TB infection to those who come into contact with him. It is understood the man had been homeless at various times before being admitted to hospital.

The HSE has declined to comment on the cost of hiring a private security company to restrain the man, but local security industry sources indicated that the cost of providing a security guard ‘24/7’ would be between €170,000 and €250,000 for the 18 months.

Chairperson of HSE West Regional Health Forum, City Councillor Pádraig Conneely said the HSE cannot continue to spend thousands of euro a week on private security at a time when, at the last count, 114 beds were closed at the hospital and the Emergency Department is in ‘chaos’, with scores of patients on trolleys overnight every week.

“It is a matter of grave concern to me that the HSE has spent a quarter of a million euro with a private security company to protect a patient in an isolation unit in a public ward. This is going on for a year and a half and there’s no end in sight – I would be mindful if a patient is ill, but surely a resolution can be found,” he said.

Last year the HSE confirmed to the Galway City Tribune that “a person who has tuberculosis is currently being detained in isolation under Section 38 of the Health Act, 1947, because there is a risk of transmission to other people”.

But in a statement yesterday the health authority said: “It is not appropriate for the HSE to talk about individual patients.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune