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Many local representatives have commented following the latest announcement by the Southern Trust regarding ongoing difficulties with retaining staff in Daisy Hill Hospital and the Trusts decision to move acute stroke services to Craigavon Hospital as well as find solutions to other ongoing issues. The announcement was made at a meeting between the Trust and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council in Newry yesterday, 25 May.
Constant Sense of Crisis
Slieve Gullion Councillor David Taylor has described the significant challenges affecting medical staffing levels at Daisy Hill Hospital as extremely worrying. Councillor Taylor said:
“The announcement by the Southern Health & Social Care Trust in relation to medical staffing pressures affecting Daisy Hill Hospital is extremely worrying.
“The withdrawal of stroke services at the hospital and the reported risk posed to respiratory and gastrointestinal inpatient medical provision are very serious developments and will cause great concern within the local community.
“There is an urgent requirement for the Department of Health and Southern Health & Social Care Trust to initiate measures to improve the staffing situation at Daisy Hill Hospital. In the medium to longer term, major strategic planning is required to protect service delivery at the hospital.
“The entire health system in Northern Ireland is obviously under major pressure with multiple challenges impacting on services across the hospital network. However, there is a growing frustration at what appears to be a constant sense of crisis surrounding Daisy Hill and it is imperative that the Health Authorities prioritise the stabilization of the system.
“I have made my own representations to senior officials in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust on this matter and am seeking clarity on how they intend to satisfactorily address the unfolding situation at Daisy Hill Hospital.”
Act of Cynical Health Sabotage
Newry and Armagh MLA Justin McNulty attended the meeting yesterday and has slammed the decision to close vital stroke care and support facilities at Daisy Hill as an act of cynical health sabotage.
He also criticized the “unquestioning acceptance of the Bengoa Report” as a far too convenient safety net for those that are prepared to place “pounds and pence above people.”
“The reality is that there is a Golden Circle of Belfast and Derry linked hospital networks that have been given political and indeed media priority. The result is that rural areas are being continually squeezed and deprived of medical parity.
"They are being treated disgracefully as experimental patients in the wider scheme of hospital provision,” Mr. McNulty warned.
The Newry and Armagh MLA has also described the move to shut down the Stroke Unit as a calculated act of medical services’ discrimination jointly drawn up by the Southern Health Board and by the Department of Health.
Mr. McNulty said that the time for restrained and polite language to skirt around the “rapid decline of amenities at Daisy Hill” has to be shelved.
“Under the all too convenient badge of the Bengoa Report into the drastic reevaluation of critical hospital support services across the North the people of the wider South Armagh and South Down area are going to be thrown on the medical scrap heap.
“It is quite shocking that some of those that claim to have the wellbeing of seriously sick people are prepared to make the argument that someone dying of a stoke condition can travel up the road to Craigavon from Newry in around half an hour.
“Try and tell that to a stroke victim living miles away from Newry in the first instance in places like Cullaville or Mullaghbawn.
“Try and tell that to individuals that have to travel over third rate mountain roads in the middle of winter.
“And try to explain the death of a loved one through a stroke that it is much more cost effective to have a so-called rationalization project implemented, irrespective of the pain and suffering a callous civil service blueprint to strip services from Daisy Hill actually represents.
“The truth is that the people with the responsibility to ensure adequate staffing levels by using imaginative recruitment and retention strategies have been found to be not fit for purpose.
“Serious questions need to be asked as to how a clearly relentless wastage of crucial staff levels was allowed to happen. Those at every level of responsibility in this disgraceful debacle must be ultimately held accountable.
“This is nothing short of a carefully managed decline over many years of health services in an area that has a wider population of up on 80,000 people. The bureaucrats within the Department and the Trust continually try to use the concept of hospital services rationalization.
“The truth is that the treatment of Daisy Hill is nothing short of a medical catastrophe.
“It cannot and will not be allowed to be allowed to become a stain of discrimination in relation to the provision of health services in the Newry area.” Mr. McNulty said.
Decline of Daisy Hill
Francis Gallagher, Chairman of the Daisyhill Hospital Save Our Emergency Surgery Committee, commented after the latest announcement by the Southern Health Trust to downgrade Daisyhill.
Gallagher stated “The shocking announcement by our local Health Trust on the proposed transfer of Stroke Services and General Inpatient Services from Daisy Hill Hospital to Craigavon Area Hospital due to the loss of 9 consultants in under 12 months is a disgrace. I am calling on the Dept of Health to implement an Independent Inquiry into the management of our local Trust and to examine its inability to retain Consultants and other Health Care staff at Daisy Hill Hospital.
"It could be argued and perceived that this is serious mismanagement by our Trust and that it has brought serious health concerns to the local community. The public now have their lives put at risk because of what could be viewed and seen as the ineptitude of senior Trust staff and this is just not acceptable. Recently at a Public Meeting on General Surgery we were given information on grandiose plans to develop Daisy Hill Hospital and now a number of weeks later we are hit by this bombshell. You also have to ask yourself is there an element of planning in all this by the Trust and Department of Health as part of a managed decline of Daisyhill?
"Whatever way you look at it, it can be interpreted as a serious lack of vision and unbelievably poor management. Today I will be writing to the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health asking for him to implement with immediate effect an Independent Inquiry into the loss these Consultants and the failure of the Trust to manage this situation."
No one is championing Daisy Hill
MLA Liz Kimmins has said that the Southern Trust are letting down Daisy Hill and the community it serves with their management of the Hospital.
Speaking after the Southern Trus meeting yesterday Ms Kimmins said “Today’s announcement that stroke services will now be diverted to Craigavon hospital will be a huge blow as Daisy Hill continues to be allowed to lurch from crisis to crisis.
“Staff and the wider community feel that no one in the senior management of the trust is championing Daisy Hill.
“An unprecedented number of consultants have left Daisy Hill in recent months which has left the Hospital in a critical situation.
“The Trust must find urgent solutions to these issues and tackle the serious difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff.
“Despite recent positive news of investment into the infrastructure of the Hospital, the poor management by the trust has meant we are once again in a very difficult situation with Daisy Hill.
“My colleague Conor Murphy MLA has today raised this, and the issue of GP cover in South Armagh with head of the civil service, Jane Brady and has sought an urgent meeting with the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health.
“Sinn Féin is committed to protecting and supporting the services at Daisy Hill and we will work together with everyone to accomplish this.
“We need an Executive formed now so that all parties can come together with locally elected ministers to deliver more investment into our health service to begin tackle the crises it is facing.”
Shock
South Down MLA Patrick Brown added "I am disappointed to hear of the unplanned removal of stroke services from Daisy Hill hospital. This closure has come as a shock to the people of Newry. Alliance will work to get reassurances for how this will impact on the people of South Down and South Armagh. If this means discussions with the Republic of Ireland regarding healthcare provision, I strongly encourage these conversations are expedited.
"The closure of the stroke unit in Daisy Hill is a direct impact of the lack of a functioning Executive to restore and transform our health services. We need Stormont up and running as soon as possible to deliver better healthcare across Newry and Northern Ireland."
