Kick Private Vultures out of South West Acute Hospital!

The privately financed South West Acute Hospital

Before the South West Acute Hospital was even built, promises were broken by the politicians and more than a dozen key medical services were lost, leaving us with a huge building but with few locally-delivered services. Now it can be revealed that the total cost of the hospital is to overrun by almost HALF A BILLION POUNDS, the vast bulk going into the profits of big business!

 

Many patients have found themselves travelling to Altnagelvin in Derry for even minor procedures. As the Socialist Party predicted, the closure of acute services in Omagh has increased pressure the South West unit, leading to crisis situations. What does it say about the Assembly parties’ commitment to our health service that basic procedures cannot be dealt with in this “state of the art” hospital?

Cuts to Acute Hospital will threaten Public Services in Enniskillen

The decision to cut the number of beds at the new acute hospital in Enniskillen to 269 rather than the original planned 315 which has been recently reported is a severe threat to the quality and nature of health provision in Enniskillen.

The loss of 43 beds will result in a further 50 nursing posts disappearing, impacting an economy already reeling from a collapse in private sector demand. The Western Health Trust is celebrating this “significant saving in nursing costs” and states that further savings will be made ‘by applying enhanced working efficiencies and the development of new roles’ – in plain language, that means nurses will be further pressurised and forced to cover for inadequate staffing levels.

The new hospital is being built through the expensive and wasteful private finance initiative or PFI; at dozens of other hospitals the use of PFI schemes has resulted directly in the loss of beds and nursing posts as the banks seek to maximise their profits. 

There is widespread concern that the new hospital will be more than suitable for outright privatisation in the future - its location along the border would make a large private hospital in Enniskillen highly lucrative for investors.

I believe that the hospital should be built with public money and be kept under full public control both now and in the future. 

The Assembly parties are implementing these Tory cuts instead of standing up for our communities and our public services. We need to build a campaign across all communities and stand with local nurses, doctors and other health service staff in defending public health provision.

Just as with the cuts to education, the home help service and special needs provision in this town, we need to build campaigns to force those in power to reverse course. That is the Socialist Party’s agenda in this election and will be my agenda as a member of Fermanagh District Council.

Nursing home cuts - “inhumane and outrageous”

A BBC report has indicated that there is a rationing of nursing home places by the Western Health Trust – this means that every month only 2 new nursing home places in the entire Western Region are to be offered to older people who need them. The decision means that patients cannot be given nursing home places despite the fact that the Trust has empty beds to accommodate them.

This decision by the Western Health Trust to cut nursing home places is a direct attack on the elderly and the vulnerable.

Our older people who have worked all their lives and have paid tax and national insurance yet are treated appallingly. Some are sent home to die to save money; others are forced to live with only 15 minutes support a day when they need much more. Families already struggling with the consequences of the economic collapse are being forced to look after sick and highly-dependent relatives.

The consequences of this inhuman approach are outrageous. One head of a nursing home was quoted as saying:

"I feel incredibly sad when I have to tell families that we cannot help them. In one case, I knew that I was sending an elderly man home to die."

At the same time, cuts have forced the Trust to reduce care packages for elderly or sick people in their homes and those that receive care get a completely inadequate amount. The consequences are that elderly people are being queued up in the Erne Hospital and blocked needed beds there.

Assembly Executive responsible for cuts

This report brings home the real impact of the ‘efficiency’ cuts that were unanimously agreed by all the Assembly Executive four years ago. And they will seem paltry to the cuts that are coming in the near future.

The cuts which the Assembly Executive is carrying out should be met with an organised opposition from local communities, workers, the unemployed and young people. The politicians should be told to go after the rich and the bankers and make them pay instead of carrying out cuts to crucial services.