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 […]
Average wait ‘over 40 hours’ for bed at Altnagelvin
THE Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) group has claimed it takes an average time of ‘over 40 hours’ for emergency surgical patients to get a bed in the Altnagelvin Hospital. As part of a large submission made by SOAS to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), the campaign highlighted how patients from SWAH are being forced […]
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. […]
WATCH: Fermanagh doctor makes history at the SWAH!
AN ENNISKILLEN doctor has made history at the South West Acute Hospital for her use of modern technology which is helping provide ‘first class medical education’ to young students. A Foundation Year 1 doctor at the South West Acute Hospital, Dr Grace Kettyle, recently teamed up with other doctors from Canada and around Europe. They […]
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 […]
Blunder means free SWAH parking for the rest of month
YOU should always read the small print. That’s what officials at Stormont were telling themselves this week after a legislative blunder meant there will now be free parking at Northern Ireland’s hospitals for the rest of this month. Drivers visiting the South West Area Hospital in Enniskillen are sure to make the most of the loophole despite the congestion and […]
‘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 […]
Fermanagh suspected stroke patient sent home without scan
“UNTIL you have ill health, you won’t realise how broken the system is.” That’s the message from a Fermanagh patient who, after suffering a suspected stroke, was sent home in the middle of the night without receiving a scan or a test following an 11-hour wait to be seen in the SWAH emergency department. Two days later the patient collapsed again, requiring another […]
SWC chief welcomes pay deal for local lecturers
THE news that lecturers are set to join teachers in Fermanagh and accept an improved pay settlement was music to the ears of the principal and chief executive of South West College in Enniskillen. Celine McCartan said she was “pleased that an improved pay offer was tabled to lecturers’ trade unions” after the offer was endorsed by […]
SWAH surgery removal putting pressure on ambulances
THERE is concern the removal of emergency general surgery (EGS) from the SWAH is putting pressure on the local ambulance service, with hundreds of patients needing transferred to from Enniskillen to Altnagelvin last year. Figures obtained by Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) show that from January 2023 to January 2024 the NI Ambulance Service (NIAS) […]