DESPITE repeated assurances over the past two years that the South West Acute Hospital would remain just that, it appears the fears of the local community have been valid all along, with a proposal to downgrade the SWAH to a ‘general’ hospital.
Earlier this month Health Minister Mike Nesbitt launched a reconfiguration framework for hospitals across the North. The document, ‘Hospitals – Creating a Network for Better Outcomes’, is now out for public consultation and can be found on the Department of Health website.
In that document it outlines how the SWAH has been selected as an overnight elective care centre, a move that has been much lauded by both the Western Trust and the Department ever since the removal of emergency general surgery (EGS) from the Enniskillen hospital in late 2022.
It also states that the SWAH should be reclassified as a general hospital, as opposed to an ‘area’ hospital like Altnagelvin. The document defines a general hospital as one “delivering defined secondary care services including unscheduled care, geared to a specific, more isolated geographical location.”
“These hospitals also play an important part in the delivery of elective care to the region,” it adds.
It is feared the SWAH could even lose its intensive care unit (ICU) in the proposed shake up, with such care planned to be delivered at the larger area hospitals.
Ever since EGS was suspended at the hospital two years ago, there has been deep concern in the local community about the future status of the SWAH. Both the Western Trust and the Department repeatedly dismissed these concerns.
Campaign group Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) acknowledged the reconfiguration document had been created in the context “of impending service collapse across many areas of our health service.” However, the group said this situation was especially precarious in our emergency departments but noted this was “completely ignored” in the document, which has no focus on emergency care.
“Instead there is a total focus on elective care and the need to get waiting lists down,” said SOAS spokesman Donal O’Cofaigh.
“The health department can surely tackle more than one serious issue at a time, but there is an entire section on elective care while shockingly there is not the same for emergency care.
“There’s virtually no mention of developing an emergency care hospital network framework that will address the current collapse in the ambulance service and EDs.
“SOAS seeks an integrated approach to development here and fully accepts that this must be done within the confines of overall hospital network development across Northern Ireland. However, this must address both emergency care and elective care.”
Mr O’Cofaigh stressed once again that Fermanagh’s “geography is at the heart of the matter” with both Altnagelvin and Craigavon emergency departments too far in an emergency.
“The only change to any pathway that will ensure we get equitable access to emergency care is to have emergency surgeons returned to the SWAH.”
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