PUBLIC SECTOR STAFF SPEAK OUT OVER CUTS TO HOSPITAL SERVICES
PUBLIC MEETING IN TOWN HALL HEARS FROM NURSES, DOCTORS, TEACHERS AND PRIESTS
March 2007
TEACHERS, nurses, doctors and priests agree on one thing – services at the Louth Hospital need to be fought for.
At a public meeting in the town hall, there is moving personal testimony from people who work at and use the hospital.
Those operating on the frontline – delivering healthcare, tending to the spiritual needs of the sick and educating children – speak with passion and grace about what the hospital means to them.
The HSE protocol of not treating accident victims and children is declared to be a farce.
There is a prolonged standing ovation for Una McArdle, who reveals what it is like working under the new HSE regimes.
She also represents AGTWU members, and is very upset watching the facility close piece by piece.
‘It breaks my heart seeing people in casualty being sent to Drogheda, even though our staff can look after them,’ she points out.
Nursing manager at the Louth A&E, Brendan McCann, has experience in similar units in Dublin, London and Drogheda, and says he ‘can’t fathom’ the transfer of services from the Louth.
‘Don’t let A&E and ICU close down. Stand up and fight. The staff are behind you 100%,’ he tells the big crowd, which spills outside.
‘We will do everything we can, but our hands are tied to some extent, but we will try to keep it open.’
Friary principal Teresa Maloney adds the lack of paediatric services at the Louth is putting major pressure on her and her staff at the school, which teaches 300 children under six.
She reveals an incident where a child fell and banged her head in the yard. Instead of being able to take the pupil to the Louth, Mrs. Maloney and the vice-principal are forced to make the trip to Drogheda.
‘What we can’t understand is how a hospital can be closed down when the town is growing faster and faster.’
Town councillor and guidance teacher Eamonn O’Boyle says Health Minister Mary Harney has shown the councillors disrespect by not meeting them, even though she told them two years ago, she would.
An invitation to HSE hospital manager Chris Lyons to come to the meeting is turned down.
In the end, Minister Dermot Ahern gives an undertaking that he will ask Mary Harney to meet with members of the Louth Hospital campaign group and Louth’s four TDs to discuss the hospital.
Some of the most bitter heckling and anger is reserved for Mr. Ahern, and there is open hostility to his protestations that he has always supported the hospital.
‘I accept that services have left the hospital, but it’s not because of my doing or the government’s.’
He puts the blame for the shedding of services at the door of the consultant bodies and the ‘dramatic rise’ in the standards of health care.
Ahern’s Fianna Fáil colleague, Seamus Kirk TD, assures the meeting the hospital will not close.