Aontú Newry and Armagh representative Roisin Mulgrew has called on newly appointed Health Minister Robbie Butler to make a clear break from the approach of his predecessor and engage meaningfully with the Newry community over the future of Daisy Hill Hospital.
“Mike Nesbitt’s resignation and the appointment of a new Health Minister provide an opportunity for a fresh start. I am calling on Robbie Butler to take a fundamentally different approach – one based on listening to patients, staff and communities rather than imposing top-down restructuring from Belfast.
Daisy Hill Hospital must be at the centre of that new approach. We need to regain Emergency General Surgery at Daisy Hill, protect the services that are already there and invest in the hospital so that it can grow and thrive.
Aontú has been heavily involved in the SOS Daisy Hill campaign from the very beginning, including attending the very first meeting, and we will continue to stand alongside the campaign and the local community.
Daisy Hill has a unique set of circumstances that are too often ignored when centralisation proposals are developed. It serves a large rural population, a significant border population and communities that are a considerable distance from Belfast. Reducing services at Daisy Hill disproportionately affects people who cannot simply jump on a train or bus or travel quickly on a motorway to access healthcare elsewhere.
It can take a very long time to travel from places such as Crossmaglen towards Craigavon, particularly when you factor in the poor condition of our road network. The transport infrastructure simply isn’t there to support increasing centralisation. We have rural roads plagued by potholes, congestion and limited public transport. Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins has done little to deal with these problems, so how are people expected to travel to these services further away?
That highlights one of the fundamental flaws in the wider centralisation model. The Bengoa Report was produced in 2016 and is now a decade old. It was written before the price of fuel skyrocketed and in a very different economic and social context to today. Yet its recommendations continue to be treated almost as though they are immutable.
Bengoa also failed to properly consider the particular circumstances of this island nation. Where is the serious consideration of an all-Ireland health service? Of cross-border healthcare or the transport system available?
You cannot simply take a model designed around an English health system, with very different geography and much stronger public transport infrastructure, and assume that it will work here.
It might be possible to design a model around Belfast and its transport links, but Newry is not Belfast. Causeway is not Belfast. Fermanagh and South West Acute Hospital are not Belfast. The communities they serve have very different needs.
We have seen tremendous campaigning from communities elsewhere who are fighting to protect their hospitals. The SOS Causeway Hospital campaign, particularly its chair Gemma Brolly, deserves enormous credit for the energy and determination they have shown. Their campaign demonstrates that this is not simply a Newry issue. Communities across the North are telling the Department of Health the same thing: local hospitals matter.
We cannot talk about restructuring health services without talking about the people who actually deliver them.
Health staff deserve better pay, but they also deserve respect and dignity. We cannot continually ask nurses, doctors, healthcare assistants and other frontline staff to do more with less.
Daisy Hill should not be viewed as something that needs to be managed down or gradually stripped of services. It should be viewed as an opportunity.
With the right political vision, Daisy Hill could thrive as a genuinely cross-border hub hospital, serving communities across Louth, Armagh, Down and Monaghan. Newry is ideally positioned to provide healthcare to communities on both sides of the border. Instead of seeing the border as a barrier, we should be looking at how we can use Newry’s unique position to build a modern, integrated health service.
That means thinking beyond the assumptions of 2016 and looking towards a 32-county approach to health provision.
Aontú believes the long-term future of healthcare in Ireland should be based on cooperation and integration across the whole country.
The new Minister has an opportunity to do things differently. He should begin by coming to Newry, meeting the SOS Daisy Hill campaign, listening to staff, speaking to patients and engaging with the wider community.
The people of Newry have been saying clearly for years that they want Daisy Hill protected, they want Emergency General Surgery restored and they want their hospital to be allowed to develop.
The new Minister must listen.
Daisy Hill should not merely survive. It should thrive – and Aontú will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the community in making sure that happens.”
ENDS