'Is this what we are doing in 2022 in emergency health care?'...Cllrs blast HSE over Navan A&E reconfiguration
Meath county councillors have again called on the Minister for Health to suspend the plan to bring in an ambulance bypass of Navan hospital’s accident and emergency department.
From next Monday ambulances will cease bringing seriously ill patients to Our Lady’s Hospital and instead bring them to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. However, councillors at their monthly meeting on Monday condemned the move and claimed that conditions at the Drogheda hospital were chaotic and quoted medical staff there as saying that the hospital would not be able to cope with extra numbers.
The move to transport patients away from the Navan A&E was made by the HSE earlier this year, a move endorsed by the board of the HSE which said that patients could die unless services at Navan were quickly reconfigured. A public campaign against the transfer has been under way for some time and another public protest meeting organised by the Save Navan Hospital Campaign will take place in the Newgrange Hotel in Navan this Wednesday.
Aontu Cllr Emer Tóibín, who introduced an emergency motion calling on the new arrangement to be called off said that newspaper reports at the weekend had shown scenes of what she called total chaos outside the Lourdes hospital in which 11 ambulances were queueing for up to five hours. She said the newspaper reports had quoted paramedics who said they could not leave because they had to wait to bring patients into the hospital where they said the A&E department was “completely overrun”.
She said that while she knew everybody was weary with the situation, she felt that unless people kept bringing the issue up and showing their opposition to it, the HSE and the Minister for Health would just go ahead with the plan they had in mind. The 17 consultants at Drogheda Hospital had come out with a second letter saying they could not cope with the numbers they had never mind taking on the people from Meath. They had called for the Navan A&E to be kept open so that Drogheda could cope with its own demand.
“What happened last Saturday night wasn’t a blip or a one-off. I cannot understand how any health authority which had all the data and the evidence and stats at their fingertips would think that the solution was to close Navan A&E”.
From next Monday (12th December), anybody in Meath who called an ambulance would be brought straight to Drogheda, she said. “Can you imagine how people in the back of an ambulance are treating someone who is severely sick or injured and that’s what we are doing in 2022 in emergency health care. It is an incredibly stark image to consider”.
Labour Cllr Elaine McGinty said that the Lourdes Hospital wasn’t just serving Navan but also North County Dublin, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. There had been a huge increase in population over the last few months because of the Ukrainian crisis. The Lourdes had not been given an increase in capacity despite this decision by the HSE and the Government to downgrade Navan A&E. She said it was known there were legitimate concerns about Navan but these concerns should have been addressed and Navan should have been upgraded. “We need more acute hospital beds”.
Fine Gael Cllr Paddy Meade formally seconded Cllr Tóibín’s motion saying that what basically happened last Saturday night as that Drogheda hospital was full, the trolleys in the hall were full. There were 11 ambulances in the car park and they couldn’t take the patients off, there was nowhere for them to go, he said.
Independent Cllr Gillian Toole said that what happened on Saturday night was “no surprise”. She said that at a recent meeting of the Regional Health Forum delays in the ambulance service were flagged because of delays through the Lourdes A&E and lack of availability of beds. The reaching of a crisis point was “entirely preventable”, she said. “The wheels have got to turn quicker because in this instance it is a matter of life or death”.
The Toibin motion was also supported by Sinn Fein Cllr Michael Gallagher, Damien O’Reilly (Fianna Fail), Joe Bonner (Independent), Brian Fitzgerald (Independent), Padraig Fitzsimons (Fianna Fail), Mike Bray (Fianna Fail). The Cathaoirleach Cllr Nick Killian appealed to councillors to phone the Minister’s office so that they could make their voices heard on the issue.
The councillors agreed to write to the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly asking him to abandon the new protocol and also to write to Oireachtas members in the region asking for their support against the move.