Downe to become elderly care base

Downe to become elderly care base

21 January 2015

A MAJOR vision for the long term future of the Downe Hospital has been unveiled — a specialist elderly care centre.

Amid ongoing criticism about the downgrading of full services at the hospital, the Recorder can reveal senior health officials are earmarking the Downe as a non-emergency centre to care for those with chronic diseases associated with ageing.

Senior health officials believe the future of the Downe would be best secured as a facility for diagnostic testing, day care provision and non-emergency surgery particularly for those over-65, with the Ulster Hospital catering for emergency and acute cases.

In the strongest indication yet that the Downe will never again be an acute hospital and the coronary care unit is highly unlikely to return, South Eastern Trust chief executive Hugh McCaughey has predicted that instead the Downe will have a “vibrant future” focussing on the elderly.

The admission came at a meeting between Trust managers and local councillors on Wednesday to discuss the financial crisis affecting local healthcare.

Mr. McCaughey confirmed a bleak outlook for health services due to ever-constricting budgets and said that although the Downe was not at risk, its focus was likely to change.

Confirming that there is “no prospect” of the reinstatement of full accident and emergency care in the foreseeable future, Mr. McCaughey said the Downe’s future was not in acute medicine.

It is not yet clear whether part-time accident and emergency services will be retained when the Trust moves towards the new hospital model.

“The future of the Downe is not trying to be the mini Ulster or the Royal Victoria Hospital in terms of major acute work,” said Mr. McCaughey.

“We do believe there is a very positive future for the Downe focussed on diseases of ageing — chronic diseases.

“We have an ageing population. We can build on diagnostic testing and dealing with chronic diseases in the hospital and finding ways to sustain that and build upon it.

“We can focus our attention looking at increasing day case provision and elective work. That is a strong and vibrant future and I do not see that being under threat.”

In a further blow to the hopes for full hospital provision, the Trust’s Director of Planning and Performance, Roisin Coulter, said she could also see very little prospect of the return of a nine-bedded coronary care ward due to the Trust’s financial constraints,

“The Downe will not be an acute hospital into the future,” she said. “The challenge for us is to find new and innovative ways of delivering urgent care.”

Such clear suggestion that full services at the Downe Hospital are unlikely to ever be restored has angered hospital campaigners as they prepare to stage a massive rally to lobby for local health provision.

Veteran campaigner Anne Trainor, who is working on the Love the Downe rally which will take place on February 14, said the Trust’s public confirmation that the Downe would not be an acute hospital in the future should serve as a rallying call.

“I am dismayed and angry to hear an official say the Downe will not be an acute hospital because that is a major focus of our rally,” she said.

“We are not looking for enhanced services, we are just looking to get back what the hospital officials have taken off us.

“If anything is going to rally people onto the streets of Downpatrick on February 14 this should be it.

“People should listen carefully to what we are being told and join us for the Love the Downe rally. This is our chance to demonstrate our opposition to these cuts.”