A&E CRISIS: The ‘sleeping giant’ of Drogheda has awoken to join the fight against the HSE

One of the worst aspects of the present crisis over Navan hospital was the fact that enraged citizens were told on one of the coldest nights of the year that because of overcrowding in the paediatric unit at the Lourdes Hospital they should take their children to their cars to keep them warm and get them to sleep, a former Mayor of Drogheda Michael O’Dowd told a protest demonstration outside the hospital yesterday.

The protest over changes to ambulance transport protocols was held in conjunction with the main protest meeting outside the Navan Hospital where several hundred people attended. The Drogheda protest was smaller in size due, the organisers said, to the bitterly cold weather. Among the attendance were the present Mayor of Drogheda Cllr Michelle Hall, Deputies Ged Nash (Lab), Imelda Munster (SF) and Independent Cllr Paddy McQuillan along with a number of local people and staff of the hospital.

Mr O’Dowd, organiser of the hospital protest, said that people bringing children to the Lourdes Hospital deserved better from a sick system that had sick children and distraught parents in such a state. The HSE had managed to “waken a sleeping giant” in Drogheda where people were angry over what was happening at the hospital. People deserved better than what they were getting, he said.

Cllr Hall said they were there to demand the delivery of safe, quality and patient-centred care for everyone in the Northeast. They were also there to add their voices to front line workers – consultants, doctors, paramedics, and care workers who were working under huge stress in the health system. “They know that putting more pressure on the emergency department here in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital is not good for patients. The consultants have written to the HSE to highlight their belief that any further ambulance protocols from Navan emergency department to Drogheda will actually put more lives at risk”.

Deputy Munster asked “How much more serious does it get when 17 consultants from this hospital decide to put pen to paper to the Minister to tell him that if he proceeds with the changes in the ambulance protocol at Navan that not only will it be unsafe but patients will die? The medical staff in the hospital (Lourdes) said that is what may happen if the protocol went ahead, she said.

Deputy Nash said he had more faith in Santa Claus than in Minister Donnelly. “If he will not listen to the people of Louth and Meath he must listen to the genuine evidence-based concerns spelt out in black and white to him by the 17 consultants who wrote to him last week.”