Minister for Health – Visit to Bantry 3/2/2012

WestCorkSOS Request For Meeting

In light of the scheduled visit by the Minister for Health to Bantry Hospital on Friday evening, 3/2/2012, the WCSOS committee have recommunicated their request to the Minister for an opportunity to discuss the proposed emergency service cuts in West Cork.

Our locally elected TDs have also been contacted, and have been asked to support this request by making direct contact to the Minister on our behalf.

Due to the nature of the location (i.e., a hospital) we will have a relatively small delegation present, and in the event that we do not secure a meeting with the Minister, a letter detailing our concerns will be passed to him by a local representative.

Public Protest

For information: The Minister for Health is also anticipated to attend an event at the Westlodge Hotel, Bantry, later on Friday evening (ETA between 7:30-8:30pm), and possibly be joined later by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny (ETA 11:00pm onwards).

The concensus view of the WCSOS committee is that any public protest likely to be noisy should not take place at the hospital.

Update – 4/3/2012:

Yet again the Minister for Health refused to meet with a WestCorkSOS delegation, despite the fact that this would have been the most constructive use of his time here. A letter expressing our concerns was passed to the Minister, and a quiet but visible protest was held in the grounds of Bantry Hospital during his visit:

Dear Minister,

You are in receipt of this letter, because you are unable to grant a few minutes of your time to meeting a small delegation from Skibbereen Town Council and West Cork SOS at Bantry Hospital this evening. WCSOS was set up at a public meeting to express and help to alleviate the concerns of the people of West Cork regarding the withdrawal of ambulance services for twelve hours a day 365 days a year in the Skibbereen and Castletownbere areas. This concern has also been expressed by over 12,000 people signing a paper petition (available to view) asking that this proposal be withdrawn. Online petition at www.westcorksos.com.

In the opinion of all West Cork GPs, Community Responders, Paramedics and everybody familiar with the geographical diversity of West Cork and our remoteness from fulltime A & E, this measure if implemented will certainly cause the unnecessary deaths of many casualties of traffic accidents, and time critical illness responses in the region.

West Cork SOS are totally supportive of the HIQA KPIs which cannot be complied with if this proposal is implemented. The proposal that Skibbereen Ambulance will not be available between the hours of 8pm and 8am will mean that should a patient carrying vehicle be needed at an accident or a serious illness in the Skibbereen area, it will be a minimum response time of 30 minutes before an ambulance from Bantry or Clonakilty can reach them, and then only if available in an area currently served by four ambulances operating at full stretch to cover the huge area.

Statistics and NAS Performance – Staff Feedback shows that KPIs fall far short of the requirement in the West Cork area and for that reason the addition of Rapid Response cars in the area would be very welcome, but only to complement the existing ambulance deployment in the area.

I recently sent a renewed request that you meet a delegation at a venue of your choice and sincerely plead with you to give this request your serious urgent consideration. We understand that you are busy with Dail and Departmental matters and consequently our request is only for a short meeting to relay the concerns of the people to you. Our three TDs in the area have also requested this meeting on our behalf.

If you cannot grant our request, we would be obliged if you would issue a clear and unambiguous statement to clarify the intentions of the HSE and NAS as we have requested one from them with as yet no response.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Fahy
Mayor: Skibbereen Town Council.
Chairman: West Cork SOS
www.westcorksos.com

Some of the protesters at Bantry Hospital