Petition for restoration of 24-hour Downe A&E

Petition for restoration of 24-hour Downe A&E

14 May 2025

A PETITION calling for the restoration of 24-hour emergency services at the Downe Hospital will be formally launched this Friday.

The Down Community Health Committee is behind the new petition for the return of services to the Downpatrick hospital which campaigners insist must be allowed the opportunity to do more to meet patient need locally.

Increasingly, local patients are ferried to the Ulster Hospital’s emergency department in Dundonald where they face lengthy waits to be seen.

In addition, ambulance crews are left waiting many hours at the ED with patients they have taken there to be formally handed over to medical staff.

Earlier this year, hospital campaigners called on Newry, Mourne and Down Council to back their new campaign to have the immediate restoration of 24-hour emergency services at the Downe and the creation of a development plan for the Downpatrick hospital.

Health chiefs claim reopening the emergency department at the Downe would “add to patient risk” but 

campaigners argue otherwise, with the comments of senior hospital administrators strengthening their resolve.

Currently, the Downe Hospital provides a telephone-first urgent care centre service which is open between 8am and 6pm from Monday to Friday. A minor injuries unit, which opens at the weekend between 9am and 5pm, also operates by appointment only.

Campaigners want to see the return of a 24-hour emergency department and argue it would not only ease pressure on the Ulster Hospital’s swamped ED, but ensure patients would be in a dedicated local unit and not left stranded in the back of an ambulance waiting to be seen by medical staff.

Campaigners say the return of 24-hour A&E services is the “biggest health issue in the area” and that “political pussy footing” will not sort it out.

They say the Downe was always intended to be an enhanced local hospital, reflecting the needs of the community who have a rightful entitlement to healthcare and it was time to get its share of investment and services.

Campaigners are also aggrieved that money is being invested in other hospitals but precious little in the Downe.

They say it’s particularly frustrating that ‘temporary’ cuts to services at the local hospital due to the Covid pandemic, including emergency department services, have not been reversed, insisting the “commitment to return all such services to our hospital must be honoured.”

Campaigners say a development plan for the Downe must be demanded from the South Eastern Trust as a top priority and developed in consultation with key players, including the local community, with the Department of Health overseeing the process.

Hospital campaigners are also concerned at the acceleration at the centralisation of services favoured by Health Service bureaucrat which leads to reduced accessibility to services for local communities.

They fear the so-called “golden hospital agenda” which is now 40 years old, still seems to be the policy of the Department of Health, despite the “concerning and ongoing decline” in the standard of service delivery, “reflected in dreadful waiting times for outpatient appointments, the emergency department chaos and the failures to meet key targets for many elective procedures”.

Friday’s launch will take place in the Education Room at the St Patrick Centre in Downpatrick at 2.30pm.