A&E Crisis: Dublin street protests on the table now as campaigners vow to ratchet up action

People attending a packed meeting of the Save Navan Hospital Campaign in the town were told that leaders of the campaign were “absolutely dumbfounded” when they were told that the HSE had decided to go through with its decision to implement changes at the accident and emergency unit of the local hospital.

The leader of the campaign group, Deputy Peadar Tóibín, raised the prospect of the protest being brought to the streets of Dublin. At the meeting in the Newgrange Hotel he said that the organisers were seriously contemplating blocking streets in the capital in order to bring senior politicians’ attention to stopping the change to ambulance protocols.

He said he knew this was a serious step to take but the hospital campaign was faced with a serious crisis issue which had to be overturned. When the news of the decision by the HSE to proceed with the new ambulance protocols broke, the campaign leaders spoke to doctors and nurses at Our Lady’s Hospital and “jaws were literally on the ground”. “People just could not understand how any organisation that was halfway plugged into the reality of people’s lives would be able to make a decision such as this at a time when there was a Winter surge and pressure on the hospitals, at a time when literally the A&Es in Navan and Drogheda and Cavan are literally out the door with patients. Many of us just could not believe it, we thought it had to be untrue”.

He said that the HSE had said there would be a two-stage closure to Navan A&E and that would start on 12th December and that they had got political authority from the Minister to proceed with it, and that the second stage would happen in January or early in the New Year and that they were awaiting the authority of the Minister on that. All of that would mean the full closure of the A&E in Navan in January.

“So it’s startling because most of us would believe that we have fought the good fight up until late Autumn and that the pressure would likely be taken off us until March. Nobody in their right mind would contemplate closing an A&E in mid-Winter when those A&Es are under such pressure, except the people who are paid hundreds of thousands of euros to mind our health service, an absolutely incredible thing”, Deputy Tóibín said.

He said that this year 100,000 people in the State were “on trolleys”. November again had been a record month for the number of people on trolleys. Every year, 360 people die as a result of being in an overcrowded A&E, he claimed.

Seventeen consultants at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda had “broken cover”, not an easy thing for a professional to do because sometimes people’s careers are affected by whether they are ‘yes” people or ‘no’ people) and written a letter to say that this decision [to change the ambulance protocols at Navan] could lead to the death of patients. “It is scandalous, it is criminal, what is happening in our county”.

Cllr Nick Killian said that a notice of motion proposed by Cllr Emer Tóibín had been passed unanimously at the recent county council meeting. He said he had a good regard for Minister Damien English, “a very hardworking Minister”, but he should have come to the Newgrange meeting. The same went for Minister Thomas Byrne, Minister Helen McEntee (“although I know she is on maternity leave at the moment”), and other TDs who represented part of Meath including Minister Heather Humphreys, TDs Fergus O’Dowd, and others.

Noeleen Donoghue of the Save Navan Hospital Campaign said the situation in Navan hospital was “busy”. “There is no point in saying we’re not. From where I work it’s crazy, I know casualty is busy. I know that we have had different days where people have been turned away because there are no chairs in the hospital, they have had to sit out in the car park. It’s not going to improve.” She said she could not understand why two more consultants could not be appointed to Navan to “make Navan safe.”

Elected representatives present included Meath County Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Nick Killian, Deputy Johnny Guirke, Senator Shane Cassells, Cllr Elaine McGinty, Cllr Shane P O’Reilly, Cllr Gillian Toole, Cllr Paddy Meade, Cllr Emer Tóibín.