HEALTH campaigners have this week reaffirmed their support for the Downe Hospital, calling for additional capital resources to be invested in the facility.
The call comes after the Department of Health signalled a review of urgent and emergency care and the establishment of so-called day-case elective care centres. Reviews of stroke and urology services are also underway.
The Downpatrick hospital has been selected as prototype for a new day-case elective care centre for cataract surgery, but the move has come at a price with the loss of ear, nose and throat day surgery from the Downe to Lisburn’s Lagan Valley Hospital.
Government officials have confirmed that it is likely the models of care across hospitals everywhere will change as clinical practice continues to evolve and new evidence emerges.
They say they have no doubt that the Downe will continue to “provide high quality care for the people of Northern leland” with campaigners insisting this will not be at the loss or downgrading of any more services provided in Downpatrick.
At last week’s meeting of the Down Community Health Committee, the chairman, Eamonn McGrady, said “serious questions” about future hospital provision in the Down area needed to be put to a number of key players.
They include Department of Health Permanent Secretary Richard Pengelly, Alastair Campbell, the senior civil servant heading up hospital services reform at the government department and senior officials from the South Eastern Trust.
Mr McGrady declared: “Our position remains unchanged about emergency department provision at the Downe Hospital. The community needs 24/7 provision and the only reason we do not have it at the minute is apparently because of staffing related issues.
“It looks as if is there is almost a tidal wave of reform coming towards us, some of which may be to our advantage and some of which may not. But there is a responsibility on us as a community group to ensure that the people of this area do not suffer the consequences of any of this.”
Mr McGrady also highlighted the shortage of contact points for campaigners to have what he described as “ongoing, meaningful engagement” at a time when there is no Stormont health minister, the South Eastern Trust chairman has left and the organisation’s chief executive is leaving.
“A recent newspaper article on the new cataract service at the Downe said it had come at a price as Downpatrick was losing ear, nose and throat day surgery. It is not that long since a senior Department of Health official told us at a meeting in Downpatrick that our hospital had not been well treated over a number of years.
“Progress at the Downe must not come at a price. This is a time for investment to put us back to at least where we were and give us the hospital we were promised and the one that the community needs.”
Mr McGrady said people accept that there needs to be change in the health service and that requires investment. But he warned that associated with any change, there has to be equity and justice.
“There has to be an end to health inequalities and the groups of individuals in the community and the individual communities who have suffered or are suffering disadvantage need to have that addressed. There is no point restructuring to deliver more of the same to the same areas and the same people and leave other areas to wither on the vine,” he continued.
Mr McGrady said that while progress has been made at the Downe on some fronts, with enhanced out-patient provision services for example, the hospital had so much more potential which needed to be utilised.
He added: “We should not be embarrassed to say there is a need for substantial, additional capital investment at the Downe because we need more beds and somewhere to put them which means more wards.
“Lots of money is being spent in lots of other hospitals and it is time some of that money was spent on the Downe to provide what is needed for the community.”