Public urged to protest at event

Public urged to protest at event

26 November 2014

PEOPLE opposed to more swingeing cuts at the beleaguered Downe Hospital are being encouraged to attend a public meeting in Downpatrick this morning.

The South Eastern Trust’s management board will hold its monthly meeting at the Downshire Hospital’s Great Hall and the meeting is due to be addressed by local politicians and senior health campaigners.

This morning’s meeting comes less than a month after the South Eastern Trust announced nine beds are to close at the Downe, while the hospital’s dedicated coronary care ward is to be closed and subsumed into a large medical ward.

Elective surgery will also be drastically scaled back, while domiciliary care packages, which includes home help provision, respite and day care and a raft of other community care services, is to be slashed by a third.

Health chiefs insist the cuts are “temporary” and form part of a contingency plan because Department of Health finances don’t match what’s needed to deliver services during the current financial year. However, the argument has cut little ice with the public which is becomingly increasingly concerned that the service cuts will become permanent.

Ahead of this morning’s meeting in Downpatrick, the chairman of the Down Community Health Committee says it’s essential as many people as possible make their way to the Great Hall to express their “total opposition to the latest shoddy attempt to reduce services at the Downe.”

Mr. Eamonn McGrady said the community’s worst fears about the future of the “people’s hospital” in Downpatrick are being realised before their very eyes.

He said the enhanced local hospital required by the area as determined by extensive research and consultation and opened just six years ago at a cost of £64m, “seems to be sacrificed on the altar of centralisation in the face of massive local opposition and community protests.”

Mr. McGrady continued: “The reduction in bed numbers, the reduction in essential services and the emaciation of our accident and emergency services will leave us with a 40-bed ‘hospital’ scarcely worthy of the title, offering polyclinic and GP services and little more.

“Budget cuts are the latest justification as the Downe is targeted once again while east Belfast’s Ulster Hospital will be actually enhanced once again at the expense of our local community, so weary of fighting for the rights and entitlements denied to us, the rural population, whilst Belfast, with its over concentration of public services, is sheltered once again. No cuts in front line services for the beloved Ulster,” he continued.

Mr. McGrady argued the “inaccessible” Ulster will benefit from the latest skills grab as beds are closed in Downpatrick and nurses redeployed to the Belfast site which is close to the Royal Victoria and City hospitals.

He continued: “But, as always, our community will fight for its rights. We will protest, we will lobby and we will expose. This morning, campaigners will address the Trust Board meeting in Downpatrick and it’s essential as many citizens as possible come along to express their total opposition to the latest shoddy attempt to reduce services at the Downe.”

Mr. McGrady issued a reminder that less than 12 months ago, the community was told A&E services at the Downe had to be reduced due to a shortage of doctors and that the decision was nothing to do with money.

“Now we are told that bed numbers must be cut, apparently temporarily, although many people believe that the cut is permanent. This time it is all to do with money,” he said.

Mr. McGrady added: It seems to us, whether there’s money or there isn’t, the Downe is always the hospital that suffers which means that our community is always the one that loses out.”

• This morning’s meeting at the Downshire’s Great Hall starts at 11am.