NEWLY re-appointed Health Minister Robin Swann has been urged to commit to restoring emergency general surgery (EGS) at the SWAH.
Campaign group Save Our Acute Services has already written to Minister Swann requesting an urgent meeting on the situation.
The decision by the Western Trust to withdraw the EGS service at the Enniskillen hospital was announced a matter of days after Minister Swann left office in October 2022, due to the collapse of the last Executive. That was despite the fact Minister Swann had refused to sign off on a Trust request to suspend the service just weeks beforehand.
Indeed, in one of his final statements at the end of his last tenure at the Department of Health, Minister Swann stated he had urged the Trust to “leave no stone unturned” in its recruitment efforts to sustain the EGS rota at the SWAH.
As has since been established, the Trust has not carried out any recruitment efforts for emergency general surgeons at the hospital during Minister Swann’s two year absence.
However, the Trust did confirm to the Herald previously that if any new minister ordered them to restore the service, they would have to do so.
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