Patient safety is paramount says Trust but Down Community Health Committee campaigners stick to their guns calling for 24/7 Downe ED
In a recent statement Minister Mike Nesbitt announced 21 new ED consultants were to be contracted to Emergency Departments across Northern Ireland by the end of the year to ease the pressure on health services.
Down News asked the South Eastern HSC Trust how this will affect service delivery in the Trust area.
A spokesperson for the Trust said: “In the past six months, five new Emergency Medicine Consultants have been recruited in the South Eastern Trust, working across the Downe, Lagan Valley and Ulster Hospitals.
“Two of these Consultants are rotated to work in the Downe Hospital Urgent Care Centre.
“All of these doctors have undertaken a robust training scheme over a minimum of six years, across many sites, gaining specialised expertise.
“Their knowledge means they can make faster, more accurate decisions about patient care, improving waiting times and patient outcomes, as well as reducing admissions to hospital.
“There are no planned changes to locums in the Downe Hospital.”
Down News also asked the Trust to clarify what it means by ‘patient safety’.
The Trust replied by saying: “The South Eastern Trust’s key priority, as always, is the safety of our patients.
“Re-opening the Emergency Department at the Downe Hospital, without required services, such as emergency surgery, anaesthetics, rapid turnaround laboratories, acute medicine, critical care and paediatrics, as well as the essential expertise, would increase patient risk.
“It would not be clinically safe nor sustainable.
“The Downe Hospital plays a vital role in the Trust, delivering a broad range of local hospital services and Regional Day Procedure services, with excellent feedback from patients.
“The Trust also provides a very successful Consultant led Urgent Care Centre at the Downe Hospital, which is safer for patients, clinically appropriate and sustainable.
“We remain committed to the Downe Hospital and our staff who deliver excellent care, both in the hospital and in the community we serve.”
Health Campaigners Demand Re-Opening Of 24/7 Downe ED
Members of the Down Community Health Committee have reacted to the recent position taken by the Trust’s Chief Executive Roisin Coulter who has on several occasion said that the ED in Downpatrick’s Downe Hospital will not be re-opening due to safety and clinical reasons.
At the recent launch of the Down Community Health Committee petition on the 16th May in Downpatrick, a number of speakers cited their personal cases where they or family members or friends had issues with the OOH service namely not having made a pre-appointment and some of the speakers cited long waits when attending at the Ulster Hospital for treatment.
The general point being made was that under stress and in pain and acutely ill, the ‘phone-before’ procedure is not working very well in the interest of patients and is causing frustration and may be impacting of people’s health.
The $64,000 question they are asking, is how can the Trust justify removing block by block the key services under-pinning the existence of the Emergency Department at the new Downe Hospital, services that existed in the old Downe Hospital for decades providing an essential backbone to health in the East and South Down area ?
A key issue is access to equitable services in a mostly rural area balanced against the clinical needs for safety.
Since the closure of the old Downe Hospital the clinical safety needs appear to have progressively changed leading to a closure of the Downe 24/7 ED.
The Down Community Health Committee are saying this is a fait accompli.
Health campaigners just don’t accept the full clinical safety argument the Trust is maintaining, and the Trust is holding firm in its rejection of the campaigners’ call for a re-opening of the Downe ED 24/7.
The Downe Hospital health campaign for the new hospital and subsequently the call to maintain key services such as the 24/& ED has run since 2009 and has been supported by all political parties.
But something has to give:
- the future of a Downe ED as a service?
- the will of the people ?
- the Trust’s adamant position that patient safety is paramount?
- the Health Minister’s avoidance of biting the bullet of this specific issue ?
- the hospital service re-configuration ?
- the health centralist demands for ‘golden hospitals ?
- the call from the rural areas for equitable health care ?
- politicians siting on the fence, and their parties ?
- and rural equality proofing of policies…are they worth the paper they are printed on ?
It is time for human decency to prevail and this problem be sorted out to the satisfaction of those who the health service impacts on primarily – the patients.
There needs to a proper mediation process in place overseen by independent, experts to facilitate a good outcome that is acceptable to the parties in this health conflict.
But, we have an Assembly which may or may not be playing musical chairs with finances and resources and ultimately we get what we vote for.
There is not just one elephant in the room, but a herd of them.
Good government should never have allowed this state of affairs on health care to have risen.
