OUR Lady of Lourdes Hospital has once again been rated the worst in the country. The Drogheda hospital is the only one in Ireland to receive an unsatisfactory rating in the latest HSE HealthStat report.

The latest report, dated October 2009, is the first time that just one hospital has received an unsatisfactory (red) rating since HealthStat began in March last year. No hospital has yet received a good (green) rating.

Our Lady of Lourdes, which was also graded as red in previous reports, scored particularly poorly for the management of its resources. As of October 2009, the hospital was 3 million over its allocation for its year-to-date budget, spending just over

92 million. Also, the hospital was over its staff ceiling, and had missed the 3.5% national target for total staff absenteeism.

A spokesman for Our Lady of Lourdes pointed out that the rating did not measure the quality of clinical care.

'Some of the red ratings concern budgets and problems with absenteeism,' he said. ' While management continue to work with staff to improve the ratings, the hospital has a number of staff on long-term sick leave and this is having an impact on its ability to reduce absenteeism further.'

Last week, medical sources in the north-east queried the HSE's reform plans for the Drogheda Hospital despite its poor recent HealthStat, Casemix and HIQA hygiene review performances.

Their opinions were further reinforced following the leaking of a private and confidential cost cutting document for the region which recommends the transfer of services from Louth County Hospital, Dundalk, to Drogheda.