SECURING a bariatric surgery hub at the SWAH would be a “building block” to help sustain wider services into the future, officials from the Department of Health have been told.
Among those to address the officials who took time out to meet with SOAS volunteers on Thursday, when the group travelled to Stormont to deliver over 19,000 local responses to the Department’s consultation on the specialist surgical hub, was Florencecourt woman Pauline Corrigan.
Ms Corrigan, who was recently elected as rural affairs officer at the Ulster Farmers’ Union, outlined how the bariatric service could help lead to the restoration of emergency general surgery at the SWAH, which she explained was literally a matter of life and death for the people of Fermanagh.
Noting there was a 17 percent higher risk of injury on a farm than any other work place, she noted Fermanagh was “rural by nature.”
“If an accident happens on my farm, by the time an ambulance comes, if there’s an ambulance available, it will take me three hours to get to Derry. I would be dead by the time we get there,” she said.
Ms Corrigan said securing the bariatric service would be “a building block” that would also help boost morale at the hospital.
Fr Brian D’Arcy also asked the Department officials to “look to the future.”
Stressing what a wonderful hospital SWAH was, Fr Brian said, “What we’re really saying is we’re trying to help you plan a future for you and us.”
He added, “What we need to do is look at the future and how can we as are a people, 84,000 people, in Fermanagh who are out on their own, near a border area forgotten with roads, forgotten with everything.
“How can we have the service that we deserve, and that the National Health Service says we deserve?”
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