The Down Community Health Committee (DCHC) is gearing up for a major rally in Downpatrick to oppose changes to the services being delivered at the Downe Hospital.
Eamonn McGrady, Chairman of the DCHC explained that it was “time to take the gloves off and voice our total opposition to the changes that are taking place in our local health service.”
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Jim Wells, South Down MLA, and then Health MInister in Waiting, right, pictured with Eamonn McGrady, Chairman of the Down Community Health Committee at a health campaign meeting earlier this year in Ballynahinch[/caption]
He said: ‘We plan to hold a rally on Saturday 14 February. The rally on St Valentine’s Day will be called ‘Love the Downe‘, and we expect everyone in Downpatrick to turn up and support it.
“This will be the first major rally for many years. We thought that the building of our new hospital was a victory for the health campaigners, but  health officials seem to have different ideas about what services are to be delivered to us locally. Quite simply, we have had enough!Â
“The walk will be from the Downe Hospital down to Market Street and St Patrick’s Square. There will be a rally with a number of speakers.
“The Downe Hospital was meant to be an enhanced local hospital and our services are just being stripped off progressively. This must be challenged.
“Down District Council has been fully supportive.  Councillors, council officials and Chairman Billy Walker are fully behind us. It was agreed  at a meeting last Friday that senior administrative officer Gerry McBride support the event technically and the Council provides a range of organisational supports.
“We need to know what alternative proposals that the South Eastern Health and Social Care Board offered to the Department of Health or  Health Minister Jim Wells when they cut the beds in the Downe Hospital recently and effectively removed the Coronary Care department,”  added Mr McGrady.
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Previous Health Minister Edwin Poots received over 20,000 signatures from Anne Trainor who co-ordinated a group for the Down Community Health Committee that gathered the signatures across Down District earlier this year.[/caption]
Anne Trainor, long-term health campaigner, will also be assisting Eamon McGrady in organising the parade. She said: “We have listened to the Trust use the word ‘temporary’ time after time in relation to cuts in our services. This is just a way of circumventing equality legislation. ‘Temporary’ certainly has taken on a new meaning, certainly one not in the dictionary.
“We have seen cuts to our beds at the Downe Hospital, the loss of coronary care, the GP out of hours service under threat which in turn impacts on the minor injuries unit, and the ongoing inequality of servic eprovision to our fundamentally rural community. Not to mention to loss of our consultant-led maternity to a midwife-led unit.Â
“As a result of this death by a thousand cuts, Down Community Health Committee is deeply concerned and following the meeting we had last week, we are now seriously considering taking a judicial review against the South Eastern HSC Trust. We need to hold the Trust to account. We cannot continue the way we are going. They simply do not care. Health Minister Jim Wells has a lot to answer for in his own South Down constituency. Following the legal precedent of the court finding in favour of campaigners in the Dalraida Hospital case (Ballycastle) last week, we are musch heartened by this decision that the Northern Trust was made accountable for its actions.
“We therefore welcome this reversal of a Trust policy decision recently at the Dalriada Hospital in Ballycastle. At the moment we see the Ulster Hospital unaffected by these cuts as millions are poured into further development and the Bangor hospital was given a reprieve yet the Downe Hospital continues to face losses to services. The time has come to address the actions of the South Eastern HSC Trust, Health Board and the Health Minister once and for all.”
Down Council Chairman Cllr Billy Walker said he was in full support of the Down Community Health Committee’s actions to prevent the loss of services to the Downe Hospital. “It is deeply disappointing to see the new Downe Hospital experiencing constant cuts to its services. We had hoped that following a number of meetings with the Trust in recent years that they would have played ball with us and openly discussed their proposals first. This clearly has not happened as was agreed at a Health Committee meeting two years ago. I expect people will come in their thousands from Kilcoo to Killyleagh and Ballynahinch to Ballyhornan to this rally.
“I am therefore delighted to have facilitated this meeting and I hope the Council’s contribution helps make a significant difference to the campaign which all of the 23 Down District Councillors support unanimously.”
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