Margaret Ritchie MP for South Down is urging the public in Down and Mourne to come out and join the rally to protect and secure services at the Downe Hospital in Downpatrick.
Speaking today in advance of the rally, Ms Ritchie said: “The People of this community in Down and Mourne have fought a long and hard battle to secure a new hospital in Downpatrick with a range of services.
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A united front: Unison Downe Hospital Branch Secretary Marion Ritchie and Chairperson Sonia Graham with South Down MP Margaret Ritchie and Strangford MP Jim Shannon pictured last year outside a protest in the Downshire Estate in Downpatrick.[/caption]
“We will not sit idly by and allow the Minister for Health, the Health Board and the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust to continue to strip our asset – our hospital of services, including the coronary care beds, and to decimate our community care provisions.
“Such a move is clearly seen as discriminating against a rural community and will have a disproportionate impact on the elderly. This Ministerial decision by the Department made last October 2014, as a result of budgetary contingency plans from the South Eastern HSC Trust represents an assault on our services and will be resisted by our own community.
“Today is the day that each family, that each person in the local community of Down and Mourne can show our wealth of support and our endorsement for the Downe Hospital. The people of Downe and Mourne need the Downe Hospital. The Downe Hospital now needs each of us today to show the Northern Ireland Executive, the Minister for Health and the South Eastern Health Trust that we need the Downe Hospital. We need to ask questions about how they are going to fulfil the health and medical needs of our community on a local basis
“The new hospital was provided on the principle of local accessibility to services at the point of delivery and equity of access to these services. That principle is as valid today as it was when the Business Case for the new hospital was approved in 2003.
“If each of us ever need to be treated for an illness locally, then we need to show our determination and true grit and be at the rally today to fight for the reinstatement of services that have been withdrawn; the retention of existing services and the provision of a range of new services including accident and emergency, day ward for medical/cardiac services, minor injury ailments, utilising the theatre for additional orthopaedic work, additional services for cataract and varicose veins surgery, the extension of day procedure services and the provision of additional radiography services. These services could be relocated from the Ulster Hospital to the Downe Hospital which has the capacity and technology to deliver them
“Such a move to relocate services from the Ulster Hospital to the Downe Hospital will relieve an over-burdened A&E, and medical services in that hospital would honour the principle of equality of access to local services for rural communities.
“Such a move also provides an immediate solution to the crisis which exists in the Belfast Hospitals which we hear about on a weekly basis. Such a move relieves pressure points that are identified on a daily basis in the Belfast hospitals. Remember that the Downe Hospital has the physical and technological capacity to address the medical and health needs of all of the South Eastern Trust area.
“If we passionately care and love the Downe Hospital, we need to use the services… GP’s need to continue to refer patients to the Downe Hospital, and each one of us needs to be there at the rally today to continue the campaign for the restoration of withdrawn services, the protection existing services and the provision of new services in the hospital” added Ms Ritchie.
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The last straw: the reduction in the 24/7 A&E care at the Downe Hospital has angered the population of Down District and beyond.[/caption]
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