*Ennis Hospital.
HEALTH activists and politicians in Clare have said it is “inevitable” that a HIQA review will recommend the creation of a second emergency department in the Mid-West region.
HIQA’s review team are currently deciding whether or not the Mid-West needs another Emergency Department for the Region, however the findings of their work will not be published until next year.
At a briefing organised by Friends of Ennis Hospital in the Doonbeg Suite of Hotel Woodstock, the case for having this ED in Ennis was clearly outlined.
The top table was comprised of Friends of Ennis Hospital members, Angela Coll, Deirdre Culligan and Cillian Murphy while political figures in attendance were TDs, Cathal Crowe (FF) and Violet-Anne Wynne (IND), Senator Timmy Dooley (FF), Cllr Ian Lynch (IND), Cllr Tommy Guilfoyle (SF), Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF), Cllr Antoinette Baker Bashua (FF), Cllr Tom O’Callaghan (FF), Cllr Rita McInerney (FF), Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) and Cllr Mary Howard (FG).
In her address, Ennis woman Angela outlined that by 2030 there will be 500,000 people living in the Mid-West relying on one emergency department and that it would be the oldest population of any hospital region. Using Barringtons or developing a greenfield site at UL “is no good to someone on the West Coast of Clare,” she said when putting forward the case for an ED at Ennis.
“We feel it is inevitable that HIQA will come back to recommend a second ED in the Mid-West,” she said. The Fianna Fáil member said the county’s TDs were “well paid to represent us” and needed to make a strong fight to ensure Ennis is the location of this emergency department.
From his time on the Regional Health Forum, Cillian Murphy obtained data from the HSE which detailed that 30,000 people is the number of people needed to go through an emergency department to “make it sustainable”.
Senator Dooley said the evidence from Friends of Ennis Hospital will “sustain the argument” for locating the ED in Ennis. He stated, “the numbers justify a second ED”.
Deputy Wynne noted attendances at the medical assessment unit in Ennis were increasing. She was frustrated that the HIQA review was “pushing out” commitments until next summer. “Pressure and political pressure is the only way we have seen things happen in the past,” Wynne said.
Closing the emergency department in 2009 was the “worst decision for the region,” Deputy Crowe decried. “A political decision brought us to this point and a political decision will get us out of it,” the Meelick native commented while informing those in attendance he was on a trolley at UHL himself in January. He cautioned, “Ennis A&E cannot reopen at the flick of a switch, it has been hallowed out”.
Ennis needs a Plan B, Crowe stressed. The TD encouraged Ennis councillors to speak with members of the planning department in Clare County Council to identify potential sites if the grounds of Ennis Hospital does not fit the bill to house the emergency department, “get ahead of the issue”. He added, “the HIQA report can say nothing but that we need another A&E”.
Coll advised that a site has been identified by Friends of Ennis Hospital which is understood to be owned by Clare County Council and that she is speaking to Sandra Broderick, the HSE’s regional executive officer in the Mid-West on a regular basis.
Cllr O’Callaghan insisted it was “a no brainer” that the emergency department be in Ennis. “We have to make this one of the key election issues,” he said.
Not everyone is within forty five minutes of an emergency department, former Kilrush Town Councillor Culligan said while recounting how she had to wait over two hours with a stroke victim in 2019 for an ambulance.
That it took three volunteers to pull the information together for the submission was “disappointing” according to Cllr Lynch. He asked them what they were looking for elected representatives to do and Culligan replied, “we have to make this a Clare issue for the election”. Coll said they want all 28 councillors and five Oireachtas members to contact HIQA requesting the ED be located in Ennis, “for us to get what we want we need cross-party support”. Murphy said a notice of motion should be submitted to Clare County Council to investigate a site and ascertain what the five key issues are from the HSE to determine what is needed for the site.
Murphy continued, “I have zero doubt that the recommendation will be for a new ED. It will be a political decision as to where it will go”.
Greenfield sites have been identified for the South Clare SDZ and Roche, noted Deputy Crowe who praised the calibre of persons in the Council’s forward planning office. “We don’t have a Minister in the county and we have felt the effects of that”.
Pressure will intensify the sooner HIQA publish their report, Cllr McInerney believed. She said “the message to open all three has stopped” in reference to St John’s and Nenagh and the work of the Mid-West Hospital Campaign, “there is a bit of a parting of the ways in that campaign”.
According to Culligan, the Friends of Ennis Hospital is around longer than the Mid-West Hospital Campaign and she lamented the lobby group’s meeting with former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (FG). She said he asked them which of the three hospitals could reopen as an emergency department, “they said all three. I cried all the way home from that meeting because I felt everything we had worked for was thrown out the window”.
Activists have “built the case,” Cllr Colleran Molloy felt. She said in order to get all councillors on board, they will have to be briefed on the submission.
