The fifth in a series of seven public consultation events on the future of emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital has been taking place at the Community Centre in Belcoo tonight.
This will be the last public event in Fermanagh, with two more taking place in Tyrone later in the week. There then will be two online sessions next month.
Since last public events have been held at the Lakeland Forum in Enniskillen, the Castle Park Centre in Lisnaskea, and the Ecclesville Centre in Fintona. All events are being attended by Trust chief executive Neil Guckian, medical director Dr Brendan Lavery, director of performance and services Teresa Molloy, and acting head of acute services Mark Gillespie, who have been answering the public’s questions on the collapse of the service.
Before all the official Trust events in Fermanagh, an information meeting has been held by local campaign group Save Our Acute Services, outlining its stark research on the impact the removal of the service would have on Fermanagh patients, including the increased travel times to access emergency surgery and the risk this poses to local lives.
Booking for these events – which now also allow people to walk in if there is remaining space on the evening – closes at 5pm today. To book your place, find further details of the meetings in Omagh and Gortin, click here.
You can also find the full consultation document on the link, which sets out how the life-saving service at the Enniskillen hospital collapsed due to a lack of staff, leaving almost all local patients over an hour away from emergency surgery.
For those unable to make the public events, there will be two online events in the coming weeks. Everyone can fill in the consultation document, regardless if they have attend the public events or not.
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