A VITAL treatment given to patients within 60 minutes of suffering a stroke is no longer available at Barnsley Hospital following a staff shortage.
Patients who need the clot-busting treatment called thrombolysis will now be taken to Pinderfields at Wakefield or Rotherham.
It comes after two consultants within stroke services left and the hospital was ‘let down’ by one of the locum consultants it had appointed to cover their absence.
The hospital’s medical director, Richard Jenkins, said an alternative locum had been identified and a permanent stroke doctor was expected to start within the next couple of months.
But he added: “We cannot give the treatment locally with temporary staff, it needs to be given by experts. We don’t think it would be safe to deliver that particular aspect of the service at the moment. We may be able to resume the service at some point, but not yet.”
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