MP urges Trust to abandon new cuts

MP urges Trust to abandon new cuts

12 November 2014

HEALTH chiefs have been urged to abandon their controversial decision to axe nine beds at the Downe Hospital.

The call by South Down MP Margaret Ritchie comes after the South Eastern Trust outlined a series of cuts to frontline hospital services, including the closure of the Downe’s coronary care unit.

It is to be merged with a medical ward, while elective surgery at the Downpatrick hospital is to be scaled back and domicilary care packages — which provide key support for the elderly — are to be slashed by a third.

Health chiefs have outlined a series of measures to save £5m before the end of the financial year and insist the decisions to close beds and scale back surgery are “temporary.”

The South Eastern Trust maintains it will be impossible to maintain current service levels in the absence of all the required funding.

But Miss Ritchie insists with the Downe working to full capacity, “it cannot sustain any reductions in service.” She said cuts to beds and services must be abandoned and is concerned the Ulster Hospital has escaped the purge of service cuts.

The MP has visited the Downe on several occasions in the wake of the Trust’s cuts announcement and spoken with staff. She said there must be no change to existing service provision.

“The Downe was provided to ensure the health and medical needs of the local community could be adequately addressed and attended to,” she continued. “That has been happening over the last number of years and needs to be acknowledged by the South Eastern Trust and Department of Health and allowed to continue.”

Miss Ritchie said the principles upon which the Downpatrick hospital was provided was local accessibility to services at the point of delivery. She said the need to ensure equity of access to services for the people of Down and Mourne are as valid today as they were when the new hospital was approved and then built.

The MP continued: “In all of these cuts to services the Ulster Hospital has remained unscathed. Why has it not been looked at? Has there been a review of services and the execution of those services at the Ulster Hospital?

“If patients are expected to travel from Downpatrick to Belfast for services, why can’t patients travel from the Ulster Hospital to the Downe for those services? Where is the principle of clinical networking with the Ulster Hospital and has it been fully implemented in the case of the Downe to allow and enable services to continue to be provided for the South Eastern Trust area from the Downe?”

Miss Ritchie argues both the Trust and the Department of Health have to accept that the facilities at the Downe are first class and lend themselves to a better staff and patients’ environment.

The MP has spoken with Health Minister Jim Wells about her concerns and hopes to confirm a date with his officials to meet with a delegation comprising politicians and hospital campaigners to discuss service cuts at the Downe.

Miss Ritchie added: “I have told the Minister that the Downe’s first class facilities must be utilised as a matter of urgent priority. Quite clearly the principles of local accessibility to services and equity to those services can be fully honoured and respected for all of the people of the South Eastern Trust area.”