Review offers hope for Fermanagh hospital services


A REGULATION and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) review has offered campaigners hope that sense will prevail and the Department of Health will bring forward plans to restore emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH). Local hospital campaign group, Save Our Acute Services (SOAS), has welcomed this week’s announcement by the RQIA that it has been commissioned by the […]

Fermanagh junior doctors’ strike to cause disruption


FERMANAGH patients have been warned that the health service will experience widespread disruption this week due to the two-day junior doctors’ strike. Junior doctors in Northern Ireland are staging the industrial action after pay talks with the Department of Health broke down earlier this year. The strike action will take place from 7am today (Wednesday) to 7am on Friday. […]

Free parking at South West Acute Hospital scrapped


FREE parking at the South West Acute Hospital and across the North is now over. Visitors, employees and patients at South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen availed of free parking since Monday, thanks to a Stormont blunder, but normal service had now been resumed. Check out Wednesday’s paper for more on the story. To read […]

Junior doctors to stage more walkouts in the North


JUNIOR doctors in Northern Ireland have said they will stage further strike action after pay talks with the Department of Health broke down. It will see two 48-hour walkouts from May 22-24, followed by a similar walkout from June 6-8. Junior doctors previously went on strike for the first time on March 6. A Western Trust […]

Ringfenced beds at SWAH ‘difficult to maintain’


DESPITE assurances of around two ringfenced beds for patients transferred from South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) to Altnagelvin Hospital for emergency general surgery, the Western Health and Social Care Trust has confirmed this proved “difficult to maintain” and the beds were reallocated. However, it has since been stressed the beds have been reinstated as of […]

‘I’d rather die than go back to SWAH A&E’


A WOMAN in her late 70’s has been left badly shaken after a trip to A&E at the South West Area Hospital left her ‘emotionally and physically traumatised’. Following a harrowing isolated 12-hour wait, the patient, who went into the emergency department after becoming very short of breath said: “If I ever get sick again I will die […]

Concern about collapse of vital service at SWAH


IT IS feared the immense pressure on the local health service could grow even further after it emerged a vital service aimed at reducing hospital numbers is now no longer available at the SWAH. There are concerns the collapse of the Older Person’s Assessment and Liaison Service (OPALS) at the Enniskillen hospital will not only increase attendances at its emergency […]

Another service gone at SWAH in Fermanagh


THE OPALS programme is not the first innovative and wide-reaching initiative to have been lost from the SWAH, with a preventative cardiology service also now no longer available at the Enniskillen hospital. A Freedom of Information request by Save Our Acute Services (SOAS), which was returned last week, revealed the much-praised ‘Our Hearts Our Minds’ service was removed […]