The Welsh Office has been asked to intervene and persuade two heart specialists to stay in Wales. The Welsh secretary of state, Ron Davies, has also been urged to look at taking over the running of the tertiary paediatric cardiology services in the principality after the decisions of the two consultants to leave.
Paediatricians are concerned that the loss of surgeon Mr Francesco Musumeci and cardiologist Dr Graham Stuart will have a serious impact on services in Wales. Mr Musumeci says he would probably not be leaving to become director of paediatric services at a Rome hospital if funding for services in Wales had been better.
Mr Musumeci says that his unit has been downsized while waiting lists are increasing. "There is a tremendous demand for open heart surgery, particularly in adults, which cannot be fulfilled. We have seen the opening of a new centre in Morriston Hospital at Swansea, which was supposed to take more patients, but what has happened is that resources have been taken away from us. At the end of the day the two centres are doing no more than was done before," he said.
The departures of Mr Musumeci to Rome and Dr Stuart to Bristol were greeted with dismay by several paediatricians in Wales. Dewi Evans, a consultant at Singleton Hospital and a member of the Welsh Paediatric Society, has protested to the Welsh secretary. "Given the importance of paediatric cardiology to consultant paediatricians and their patients throughout most of Wales, there is an irresistible argument in favour of taking the responsibility for the management of the services away from an individual trust and health authority and placing it with the Welsh Office, and in future, the National Assembly," he said in a letter to the Welsh.
And he adds: "Mr Musumeci says that if the funding was better he would be staying. If it is not too late for the Welsh Office to intervene and ensure that both he and Dr Stuart are persuaded to stay in Cardiff then I ask you to intervene personally."
A spokesman for the University Hospital of Wales Trust said: "Regional services have not been well planned strategically and we have been lobbying for some direction to be given. We believe that Mr Musumeci has been considering a move for some time. It is possible his decision might have been different if the funding for adult cardiac services had been resolved."
