The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association has said that Dr Dympna Waldron's decision to stop referring patients to the Galway Hospice was both "correct and justified" in the light of the independent review published yesterday.
Glór an Phobail, the community group campaigning for the re-opening of the hospice, has also said that Dr Waldron made the right decision.
The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) said that it would be issuing a full statement when it had received a complete copy of the report, but was "satisfied" that Dr Waldron's actions to ensure safe patient care at the Galway hospice were correct.
"It was Dr Waldron's concern at the lack of action by the hospice in remedying errors reported which led her to discontinue admitting patients," the IHCA said.
"We believe any impartial and full assessment of the situation would endorse this view."
The Western Health Board (WHB) chief executive, Dr Sheelah Ryan, said that the board would need to study the report, running to over 100 pages, in its entirety, and "reflect on its analysis, findings and recommendations over the coming days".
Dr Ryan said she had received a copy of the report at 3 p.m. yesterday, and had circulated it to all board members and key staff. The health board would be working closely with the Galway Hospice Foundation to "implement whatever is necessary to resume in-patient admissions as soon as possible".
Ms Máirín Mhic Dhonnchadha, spokeswoman for the community group, Glór, said she found the review "shocking", given the level of medication errors that had occurred at the hospice.
"Dr Waldron obviously stopped referrals as a last resort, and received insufficient support for her decision from either Galway Hospice management or the Western Health Board," Ms Mhic Dhonnchadha said.
The hospice should be re-opened as soon as possible, but only when procedures could be guaranteed to be safe, Ms Mhic Dhonnchadha said. It was imperative that the review group's recommendations be implemented, and that these should be reviewed within three months as advised by the group, she added.
Ms Mhic Dhonnchadha said that she took issue with a statement by the Galway Hospice Foundation yesterday in which it said that the medication error rate, at 1.4 per cent, was below a national average of 4 per cent. In its comment, the Galway Hospice Foundation said it accepted that systems needed to be put in place to identify and deal with all errors, but asked that the report's findings be put into context. The patient harm error rate of 1.4 per cent compared to a nationally stated figure of 4 per cent, as referred to by the Minister for Health last month in the Harvard Medical Practice Study, it said.
"This is not comparing like with like," Ms Mhic Dhonnchadha said. "You cannot compare a 12-bed hospice with an acute hospital. This hospice had a very high ratio of nurses to patients, and a system of planned admissions with detailed medical histories in each case."
The Galway Hospice Foundation reiterated yesterday that it regretted any inconvenience or distress to patients and families as a result of the hospice closure, but said that home care and day care services were currently looking after up to 100 patients.
