South West Acute Hospital RMGFH
WITH another public meeting on health coming up at the end of the month, this time focused on the sweeping savings proposed by the Western Trust, a petition has been set up calling for our neonatal unit to be saved.
There has been uproar in recent weeks over the wide-reaching cuts to our local health service, proposed by the Western Trust in a bid to save £12.5 million, in turn part of a £70 million cost-cutting exercise by the Department of Health. With our state-of-the-art stroke unit at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) already under threat, proposing even more cuts has felt like salt in a wound to many in the county.
One local man, Ray Haskins, was so outraged by the Trust’s proposals, which include the closure of SWAH’s neonatal unit, he has set up a petition that has already garnered 2,500 signatures.
Ray, whose own family has benefited from both the neonatal unit and stroke services, said the safety of babies at SWAH relied on the retention of the unit.
“Neonatal provides a vital service of care to babies who are born in SWAH who are sick or premature or both,” he said, stating a transitional care unit would be unable to provide the same level of care for premature or sick babies.
“Transitional care is already being provided in the maternity unit in SWAH, and babies requiring more care are admitted to the neonatal unit,” he continued. “Closure of this unit means a lot of women threatening with premature labour will be transferred to other hospitals and this will have an impact on the number of births at SWAH.”
Ray, who has written to all Fermanagh South Tyrone MLAs on the matter and has yet to receive a single reply, told the Herald said it wasn’t just the neonatal unit that needed protecting, pointing out the proposed cuts target our most vulnerable members of society.
Referring to the proposal to close an entire elderly ward at SWAH also, he said: “We have a very young population, who are having children, and we have an older population. They’re stripping both ends away.”
You can find the petition by searching for “The retention of neo natal services in SWAH” on the website 38 Degrees.
Meanwhile, following the massive turnout at this week’s meeting on the future of SWAH’s stroke unit, a public meeting on the Trust’s ‘savings’ proposals has been organised for the Lakeland Forum on Thursday, September 28 from 7-9pm. For more information on the meeting and the proposed cuts, visit www.westerntrust.hscni.net.
To read more.. Subscribe to current edition
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere