Hospital campaign pickets HSE Dublin HQ
HSE Head Office in Dublin was picketed on Friday by the Save Navan Hospital Campaign, who delivered a letter demanding a future for Navan's Emergency Department.
The picket was attended by local union leaders from SIPTU and elected representatives from Sinn Féin, Fine Gael and Aontú.
Delivering a letter to the office of the new Acting HSE CEO, Stephen Mulvaney, Chairman of the Save Navan Hospital Campaign Peadar Tóibín TD said.
"We deliver this letter demanding that Navan Hospital A&E is built up and strengthened to make it as safe as any other hospital in the country. We demand that this at the very least is explored. We are asking the HSE to meet with us to discuss the potential to safeguard and add necessary capacity in Navan in the middle of a A&E capacity crisis”.
“The A&E sector across the country is under immense pressure. There are record waiting times being experienced throughout Ireland. This is impacting of people’s health and lives like never before. The biggest frustrations that I hear from patient facing clinicians in the region is that they are not being listened to by the HSE senior management. There seems to be a significant detachment between senior HSE management and clinicians on the ground.
"The 23 hospital consultants who were forced to write the letter outlining the threat to patient safety by the proposed closure to the A&E during the summer is an example of this.
“Another example is the dearth of GPs in the county. That the closure of the A&E would be built on a replacement with an GP referred MAU is incredible. "People cannot get timely access to GPs in Meath, which is a massive problem in itself, but predicating access to an MAU on an GP appointment in this environment would be a disaster”.
“Capacity is central to this crisis. It is estimated that 360 people each year lose their lives due to A&E overcrowding. Adverse incidents in the health service increased to 105,000 last year. Much of this is down to pressure on staff and services. This does not measure the negative health outcomes that affect people who do not get the timely health care that they need”.
Deputy Toibin said closing ED capacity in Navan would exacerbate this problem further and cause untold damage to the health of people in Meath. "Meath has the second fastest growing population in the country, at nearly a quarter of a million people. There is major house building happening in Meath now and the Navan to Dublin Rail Line is being added to the Infrastructure Development Plan of the state.
"This will further increase the number of people moving to Meath. Many population centres in Meath are not within easy reach of Drogheda, Public transport links are not strong or are none existent from these towns to Drogheda. Many people do not have private transport.
“University Hospital Limerick is a prime example of the damage left behind after the decision to close A&Es in that region. Its hard to understand how the HSE can be so gung-ho to proceed in Navan while they are still surveying the wreckage of Limerick."