Statement from Save Our Hospital Committee following meeting in Dundalk with HSE officials and Forum on the 9th February 2010.

Stalemate between Government / HSE and the people of Dundalk.  HSE have convinced nobody and now must listen to the voice of the public

Following the meeting between the Forum consisting of Dundalk Town Councillors and the Save Our Hospital Services Committee, and HSE officials held this week in Dundalk the Save Our Hospital Services Committee are agreed that there is a clear stalemate between the leaders in the HSE, their government policy makers and the wishes and experiences of the public regarding services at Louth County Hospital.

The reason why we describe this as a stalemate is because HSE leaders demonstrated a lack of understanding of the issues here in Louth. They have tried to give a deaf ear to the unanimous opposition to their plans to remove services from Dundalk to Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda.

Nobody living in this area supports the plans to close A&E, Intensive Care and Acute Medical Services. Doctors Quigley and Ó Branagáin care nothing for the fears of the public. They arrived in Dundalk with a rigid agenda of talking in circles but answering no questions. They are obviously briefed to impose the cuts and disregard any opposition.

The HSE officials including Stephen Mulvany do not know how many ambulances or paramedics we have in the region. They do not know how many will be needed if they close our services. They could not say what service would be in place.

These advisors to Mary Harney could not explain the news that their plans will include only 18 beds remaining in Louth County Hospital, though their proposal originally was to be 35 beds. Louth County Hospital had 5,000 inpatients last year with more than 100 beds.

These policy advisors admitted that the long promised Midwife Led Unit will not be coming to Louth County Hospital despite Fianna Fáil and Green Party promises of this service. They had no response to the news that Maternity Services were withdrawn “temporarily” by the old Health Board under the chairmanship of Fianna Fáil’s Declan Breathnach.

They did not know how many people used A&E in Dundalk last week or last month though their plan is to close this services on an allegation that throughput is to low.

They have admitted that wait time for non emergency patients at Lourdes A&E will be longer as a result of diverting patients from other hospitals. This is not an improvement in service.

They admitted that 100 jobs will be lost in Louth County Hospital as a result of their cuts.

It is now admitted that the policy is to transfer patients to private nursing homes which have a profit margin built into their costs as opposed to treating the elderly and ill in public hospitals. This proves to us all what Mary Harney’s real agenda has been. Her friends in the private healthcare sector are more important than the Irish public.

The Save Our Hospital Services Committee rejects these plans.  We have galvanised public opinion against the cuts in services. We believe that the HSE are implementing government policy. The government must now reverse the policy direction.”

Additional comment from Cllr Tomás Sharkey, member of the Save Our Hospital Services Committee

“On leaving today’s meeting, I had a conversation with Dr Colm Quigley of the HSE. We spoke about his position on caseload to maintain safe skills for health professionals.  He has held the view that numbers in Louth County Hospital are insufficient to maintain skills. He claims that there are too many hospital in this area.

“However, Colm Quigley admitted that there are private hospitals which do not have enough patients to maintain clinician’s skills. These hospitals are not under attack from Mary Harney. In fact they receive lucrative tax breaks.

“Mary Harney has stated that she takes her advice from her clinical advisors and will not deviate from this. She deviates from it every day these private exclusive hospitals remain open.

Additional comment from Cllr Alan Grehan, member of the Save Our Hospital Services Committee

“During the 3 hour lecture we received from the HSE officials today.  It was confirmed to the representatives present by Dr. Quigley, that the transformation agenda is a matter of government policy and that the HSE will implement same as a matter of urgency. This is contrary to what we have been told by our local and national government party representatives, who have claimed both publically and privately that this threatened transfer of service from the Louth County Hospital is being driven and implemented by the HSE and that they are powerless to stop it”.

“The people of this town by their actions have rejected these proposals and the HSE this afternoon told us that as representatives  of the people, we were being disingenuous in our representation of the facts”,

“I find this particularly galling, given that we find that we have been lied to yet again by the government parties, as they try and spin their way out of responsibility for the threatened implementation of these proposals”.