THERE have been renewed and growing calls for the Western Trust to urgently put a plan in place to restore emergency general surgery (EGS) at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH).
Since the EGS service was suspended “temporarily” at the SWAH in November 2022, thousands of Fermanagh patients have had to travel two hours to Derry for emergency surgery, often in great pain and suffering from potentially life-threatening conditions.
The Western Trust stated at the time that EGS had been withdrawn as it did not have enough general surgeons to maintain the SWAH rota, but vowed to work tirelessly to restore the service.
However, the Trust has made no attempt to recruit emergency general surgeons for the SWAH since that suspension. In fact, the Trust has not tried to recruit to the SWAH EGS rota since May 2021, despite confirming it was aware the service had been at risk of collapsing long before November 2022.
Both Áine Murphy MLA and newly elected MP Pat Cullen, who is the former head of the Royal College of Nursing, issued statements calling for steps to be taken immediately to reinstate EGS at the Enniskillen hospital.
In response to an Assembly Question Ms Murphy had submitted, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt recently confirmed current consultant recruitment efforts by the Western Trust were for ‘Trust-wide’ contracts, and would be working on elective procedures at the SWAH, not EGS.
Ms Murphy has now called for “further clarity” from Minister Nesbitt in relation to plans to restore SWAH EGS. She called on the Department of Health and the Trust to “lay out a road map for the return of emergency general surgery as soon as possible.”
“To date, the WHSCT and the DoH have failed to provide a plan for reinstatement of these services. This needs to happen urgently,” she said.
Ms Murphy’s Sinn Féin colleague Pat Cullen MP has also issued a similar appeal after meeting with the head of the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), who is currently reviewing the SWAH EGS situation.
“I voiced my concerns that the pathways currently in place are not meeting the care needs of patients,” said Ms Cullen. “As your MP, I will continue to fight for better outcomes for patients and staff, and this must include the reinstatement of Emergency General Surgery at the SWAH.”
This week both Ms Murphy and Ms Cullen, along with party colleagues, met with campaign group Save Our Acute Services (SOAS). The group is made up of members from across the Fermanagh community, and has been working weekly for two years in an attempt to have EGS restored at SWAH.
SOAS said it welcomes the growing number of local politicians who are publicly demanding Minister Nesbitt to bring forward a road map for the reinstatement of the service. The reiterated the need for EGS at the SWAH, given the danger patients are now being put in due to Fermanagh’s geographic isolation from other acute hospitals.
“We will be engaging with all political parties, but welcome the strength of last week’s statement by Pat Cullen, our new MP,” said a spokeswoman.
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