Write a commentNewry and Mourne Cllr Frank Feely said “that the Council wants the full support of the people of South Armagh for the Rally on Saturday 28 March 2015 to save the acute Stroke Unit at Daisy Hill Hospital which is under threat of closure.
You the people of South Armagh know how important the acute ward at Daisy Hill is, you also know how long it takes to get an ambulance to pick you up and bring you to Craigavon if you were unlucky enough to get a stroke . When the Southern Health Trust says that it only takes one hour to get an ambulance to bring a person to Craigavon Hospital you know they are telling lies.
There are 6,000 people in South Armagh over the age of 65 and unfortunately some of them will get strokes in the future so it is very important for everyone to keep the Stroke Unit at Daisy Hill Hospital so that they can get there quickly and have a much better chance of a full recovery.
During the Consultation on the future of the Stroke Unit in Daisy Hill Hospital 87% of the people who responded to the consultation disagreed with the Southern Health Board’s proposition to close the Stroke Unit at Daisy Hill and build a new one in Craigavon for the whole area but yet the Health Trust and the Minister, Mr Jim Wells chose to ignore these people and carry on with the plan to close the Stroke Unit at Daisy Hill Hospital and build a new one in Craigavon. This is completely anti-democratic and it is dictatorship by a very small number of people. In fact only 13% of those who replied agreed to the closure of the Stroke Unit at Daisy Hill Hospital. What 86% wanted was to keep the two acute hospitals to deal with approximately 600 people a year who get stroke in the Southern Area.
There are two hospitals in the West Coast of Northern Ireland and the East Coast of Northern Ireland with double the population certainly needs two stroke units.
Travel to Craigavon Hospital is a major problem for the people in Rural areas in South Armagh and South Down where altogether there are more than 12,000 people over the age of 65 and many future stroke patients will die if they have to travel for 3.5 or 4.5 hours to get to Craigvon and incidentally this is totally against the advice of the National Stroke Unit who say that if a patient with a Stroke is in a hospital they should be moved immediately to a stroke unit in the same hospital to give them a better chance of recovery. It is a blatant lie to say there are 4 stroke units in the Southern Area. There are only two official stroke units, one in Daisy Hill Hospital and one in Craigavon Area Hospital both set up in 2005 by a British Minister.
The Health Trust is working with the Commissioner against the wishes of the people of Newry and Mourne and worse still the Minister, Mr Jim Wells appears to support them. They are trying to get £400 million from the Minister for a new hospital during the worst financial crisis in Northern Ireland even though Craigavon Hospital is only 40 years old. This is very serious discrimination against staff at Daisy Hill and the people of Newry and Mourne.
A leading Consultant told me that Daisy Hill Stroke Unit has experienced stroke staff including nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers and speech and language therapists and all patients get full, intensive care.
Daisy Hill also has 24 hour laboratory and pharmacy support available. To make Daisy Hill a specialist unit as envisaged by the Health Trust all it needs is two more Consultants, two more nurses and an MRI scanner to make it fully operational 24/7. It already has a rehabilitation centre which Craigavon Area Hospital hasn’t got. The reason Daisy Hill Hospital hasn’t an MRI scanner is that the Health Trust failed to provide one over the last eight years, even though they only cost less than £1 million and Craigavon is looking for three new MRI scanners.
Under the new system patients will not receive equal care because Newry and Mourne patients will have to make multiple ambulance journeys to Craigavon and back to Daisy Hill which is completely contrary to the advice of the National Audit Team which is the expert on stroke matters. Daisy Hill Stroke Unit is recognised throughout Northern Ireland has having an excellent system of care for patients and is actually copied in other hospitals. The result of the National Audit am confirm this when the Consultants work in Newry got a grade B and Craigavon only got a D.
Councillor Feely said he believed that the Health Trusts are motivated by discrimination and jealousy and their motive is to move the staff and the system in use at Daisy Hill to the new hospital at Craigvavon.
The travel times given by the Trust to reach Craigavon Area Hospital from Newry and Mourne are absolute lies as the people in the Rural Areas of South Down and South Armagh know only too well. It is a vital necessity for the future health and wellbeing of the 100,000 people that live in Newry and Mourne to keep all the services that exist at Daisy Hill Hospital for the benefit of all the people.
More lies are also told by the Health Board when they say that stroke care at Craigavon Area Hospital only takes seven days, they forget to add the thirty seven days rehabilitation that it takes in another nearby hospital. The Health Trust also lie when they talk about the redevelopment of Craigavon Area Hospital, what they really mean is the development of a new hospital. The specialist care given to the Stroke patients in hospital immediately following their stroke shapes their long term recovery and the people of Newry and Mourne can only get that immediate care in Daisy Hill Stroke Unit.
PLEASE SUPPORT THE RALLY TO KEEP DAISY HILL HOSPITAL STROKE UNIT IN NEWRY ON SATURDAY 28 MARCH 2015 AT 12.00 PM.
