by Paul Neilan
EXCLUSIVE

RUMOURS continue to circulate in the county as to the reasons behind the removal of embalming services from Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, but the Post understands that an incident at a separate hospital is responsible.
On November 1 services were removed by hospital chiefs, who were told by area managers to implement an independent national report on embalming called the Willis Report.
It incensed the county’s funeral directors, who held a 23 hearse-protest at 8.30am last Friday morning (27 November) saying the decision was insensitive, would cause delays and hurt to families and was “baffling”.
The funeral directors are now considering a national action that would see a fleet of hearses descend upon the Dail “before Christmas” unless the impasse with the hospital is resolved.
The funeral directors are waiting on a response from Des O’Flynn, the group general manager of Louth Hospitals, under which Navan operates, to reverse the decision. Mr O’Flynn has also been written to by at least one local representative looking for an explanation.
The Post, however, understands through various sources, that an incident at another hospital within the Louth-Meath area is responsible. Well-placed sources say there were difficulties with an employee attached to the mortuary department in the hospital.
This forced a knee-jerk reaction from area chiefs, who used the Willis Report as a “super camoflage” to shut down embalming services in the Louth Meath hospital region before the case got out of hand.
Whatever about the HSE’s reaction to the protest, they explain the decision to cut services as one solely down to implementing the Willis Report, which they point out was a national document.
However, the Willis Report says of the logs in place in Navan that they are of a “very high standard” and that organ transplant procedures were of “excellent” practice, which has left funeral directors suspicious.
Though the HSE released a statement on the matter, they say the responsibility lies with each hospital regarding embalming.
“Embalming is not a service that is either provided or funded by the HSE, and it never has been. It is provided by commercial entities under a contract with recently-bereaved families who choose this service,” a spokesperson said.
Hospital sources disagree: “It makes less sense to think of it as a financial decision when you think that they [the HSE] spent a million on upgrading the facility to state-of-the-art and then spent €40-50K on the fridge for nothing? The [Willis] report says as much. It doesn’t make sense to close it.”
One undertaker described it as “a crazy” course of action “without any accountability” and one that will hurt bereaved families due to inevitable backlogs of releasing bodies.
Undertakers will now wait for the HSE to sit down with them before deciding their next course of action.
Meanwhile, there are still two people being treated for C Difficille and two people being treated as symptomatic cases in Navan.