Campaigners battling to save services at Daisy Hill have warned that A&E could be next in the firing line at the Newry-based hospital unless the community unites to fight back.
To that end, a public meeting is due to be held in the Canal Court Hotel on Thursday, October 1, at 7pm, with the message to the Southern Trust coming through loud and clear: “This fight is only starting.”
The SoS Daisy Hill Hospital group attended a meeting with the Southern Trust Board today (Thursday) after this week’s bombshell announcement surrounding maternity services.
Due to “significant” workforce pressures, the Trust had said that it may have to consider ‘temporarily’ consolidating maternity services at Craigavon Area Hospital as part of a ‘contingency plan’.
Related: Centralising births ‘not the answer’ as Causeway figures ‘sound alarm’ for Daisy Hill
But SoS Daisy Hill Hospital campaign committee spokesperson Francis Gallagher – providing an update after today’s face-to-face talks with the Trust – said those plans to cease providing maternity services at Newry were already “at an advanced stage”.
In a video message to supporters, he warned: “We as a community as a whole, we’re all in big, big trouble.”
Mr Gallagher said Daisy Hill provided acute services across South Down, South Armagh and the whole Mournes area and he left Trust bosses in no doubt as to the need for services there to be retained – while putting on the table a suggestion for the way ahead.
“I argued, right from the word go, that we always maintained that, when you take away stroke services, when you take away emergency general surgery, that as each pillar is taken away, it’ll lead to another acute pillar of the hospital being taken away. And now this is happening with maternity services. So, the great danger is that A&E now will be the next department to go.
“So what happens next? On a positive note, the Trust did say that they’re still open to solutions, that everything is still on the table, so it’s definitely not over by a long shot.
“What I suggested on behalf of our group was that there would be a health summit established at Newry, an emergency health summit in the very near future, and that the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, the Health Minister, all the different leaders of the different trusts in the province and other stakeholders, be invited to this health summit, and that we all sit down together and we try and come up with a solution to this problem.”
Mr Gallagher also laid the blame for allowing it to get to this stage firmly at the door of the politicians, the Trust and local government too.
“I did say that the whole thing was a complete failure of political leadership, right from the top down, right from the Irish Government, the British Government, in the sense that they have let the institutions at Stormont stagnate, and then the next level of responsibility is for Stormont itself. They’re the ones in charge, in the first instance here, and all this has happened on their watch.
“After that, the next line of responsibility would be the Health Trust. This goes back a long time with the Southern Health Trust – we know that we’ve always had problems going right back years – and then, of course, the next line of responsibility goes down to local government level.”
Now the SoS Daisy Hill Group is urging people to come out in numbers to next Thursday’s meeting and make their voices heard.
“We need you, the public, to come out and support that meeting,” said Mr Gallagher, “because, you don’t need me to tell you, if we lose our maternity department, if we lose then our A&E department, this is really, really a fight for survival for many people. You don’t need me to tell you what the consequences would be of losing those services.
“So let’s get moving, let’s get our heads together and let’s come up with a plan that is going to apply influence, for that influence has the most effect, and that’s not only with the Southern Health Trust, but ultimately with the political parties at Stormont and with our Department of Health in Belfast.”
On a final note – and urging supporters to “be positive” – Mr Gallagher added: “The whole thing is an absolute disgrace but we’re certainly not going to give up. This fight’s only starting.”
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