Donegal - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970

Protest against Hospital Cuts - Letterkenny Sat Aug 7

donegal | miscellaneous | event notice

Thursday August 05, 2010 22:41

by éirígí Sligeach - éirígí

eirigisligeach at gmail dot com

Save Letterkenny Hospital

Protest march takes place in Letterkenny Co Donegal to demonstrate against proposed health cuts

As people will already be aware, the Health Service Executive (HSE), on behalf of their political masters in Leinster House, are preparing to cut staff numbers and slash services at hospitals throughout the country. This includes both Letterkenny and Sligo General Hospitals here in the north west. The future of other smaller units such as Lifford Community Hospital and the Sheil hospital in Ballyshannon are also under threat.

As this blog has regularly highlighted (click here for most recent article) the cutbacks already imposed on our hospitals and health service in general, have caused immense suffering and hardship to patients. According to the main nursing union, the INMO "the level of cuts, currently being imposed upon our public health service, are compromising patient care, lowering standards and greatly increasing the clinical risk to patients."

Following their carrying out of a comprhensive review of the entire Health Service, the INMO said that they discovered the following:

* Over 1,500 public beds are closed including beds in hospitals designated as Centres of Excellence resulting in longer waiting time for essential treatment

* Very high levels of A&E overcrowding with over 300 people on trolleys, awaiting a bed, on nine days in July as compared to one in July 2009

* Primary care services being curtailed, or suspended indefinitely, due to a shortage of nursing staff

* Intellectual disability services being curtailed, suspended or eliminated altogether, again due to the shortage of human or financial resources; and

* Frontline staff, in nursing, midwifery and other support grades, not being replaced resulting in frontline direct patient care services being compromised.

Amongst the latest cuts planned by the HSE for Letterkenny General Hospital are believed to be a plan to cut the working hours of 94 members of staff on fixed term contracts by eight hours each. Such cutbacks will result in a devestating loss of income for these workers, particularly those who are only part-time.

What these cutbacks will mean for patients are yet more operating theatre and bed closures, more people left lying on trolleys, cancelled operations, longer waiting lists and unnecessary and increased suffering and even deaths.

The INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran has claimed that the cuts being implemented are being "imposed in a manner which is unsafe" and are a result of the Croke Park Agreement between the Dublin government and ICTU on public pay reform.

Speaking on Tuesday he said that patients "are entitled to quality assured services when they need them and public patients cannot be treated like second class citizens when compared to those who can afford private healthcare at this time”.

He added: “The INMO voted against the Croke Park proposals primarily on the basis that they require 6,000 posts to be taken out of our health service in a haphazard, uncontrolled and unplanned manner with scant regard for the impact upon patients and their needs and requirements. We are now seeing the real impact of this flawed approach."

And while people are rightly horrified at these latest plans to cut services in our hospitals, even worse is set to follow. In the upcoming budget, Health Minister Mary Harney is seeking a further cut of €600 million off the health budget. Unless they are forced to halt these cutbacks and actually invest in creating an efficient first class health service for all, we will very soon be left no public health service at all.

This Saturday (August 7) a march and rally has been organised in Letterkenny, Co.Donegal to protest against the HSE's proposed cutbacks. The march, which will commence from the Station roundabout in the town at 12 midday and proceed to the hospital, has been organised by the newly formed Save Donegal Health Services campaign group.

The group is comprised of the three main health care trade unions, INMO, SIPTU and IMPACT. Other groups involved include the Irish Kidney Association, Donegal Action Cancer Campaign, Friends of Letterkenny General Hospital, Co-operating for Cancer Care North West and the General Voice of Older People Donegal.

éirígí are urging people throughout the north west to attend Saturday's protest march in large numbers. The HSE and their political masters in Leinster House need to realise and to see that as a community we are sick and tired of the savage cuts being imposed on us, at the same time as they bail out the banks to the tune of tens of billions of euro and as they feather their own nests and that of that of the wealthy business elite.

The people of the north west and the people of Ireland deserve a first class public health service properly funded, resourced and staffed. It is our right, not some privilege to be dispensed at the discretion of overpaid and uncaring politicians who are intent on dismantling it and privatising it in order to make profits for their cronies within the business sector.

Once again, the message is clear. Fund our hospitals, not the banks.

save preference

Comments (5 of 5)

saturday demo

by drumkeen man

Fri Aug 06, 2010 00:06

will be there for sure. we cannot let these cuts happen

Saturdays protest

Sun Aug 08, 2010 21:02

Thousands of people took to the streets of Letterkenny in Co Donegal yesterday (Saturday Aug 7) to show their anger at Dublin Government and HSE (Health Service Executive) plans to slash services at Letterkenny General Hospital and to impose other cuts throughout the health service.

Around 3000 people assembled at the station roundabout in the town at midday for the rally which was organised by the newly formed 'Save Donegal Health Services' campaign group. Led by a piper, the large crowd marched up the Port Road towards the Main Street before turning up High Road and proceeding to the hospital itself where a number of speakers addressed the crowd.

Amongst those who delivered speeches to those assembled were spokespeople from the three main health service Trade Unions, IMPACT, SIPTU and the INMO (Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation). Speakers from the Voice of Older People Donegal (VOPD) and Donegal Action for Cancer Care (DACC) also addressed the crowd.

The planned cuts for Letterkenny include a reduction in day services, the closure of an operating theatre, the removal of at least 13 beds from Orthopaedics and the Intensive Care Unit as well as the slashing of the numbers of hours being worked by almost 100 members of staff at the hospital. They are also to close a pharmacy and shut the hospital's mortuary on a Saturday. Similar cutbacks are planned at Sligo General Hospital and other hospitals throughout the region.

Smaller hospitals such as the Sheil Hospital in Ballyshannon and Lifford Community hospital, both in County Donegal, are threatened with imminent closure. Now the HSE are saying that they may also close a major hospital somewhere in the west but they have refused to say which hospital they have their sights on.

Fianna Fáil and the Green party are also believed to planning even further cutbacks in the region of €600 million in the upcoming budget beyond these current plans to slash services.

Following the rally, the HSE issued a statement in which they claimed they would "protect front-line services" and that all services provided by HSE West would be provided in a "safe manner".

Sligo éirígí activist Gerry Casey, who was one of many éirígí activists from Counties Sligo and Donegal to take part in the Rally, dismissed the HSE's assertions saying that the planned cutbacks are "completely unnecessary" and will cause "unnecessary suffering and death". He said the Dublin government are deliberately slashing services and stripping the health service bare to facilitate the privatisation of the public health service.

Speaking following the rally, Casey said: "The savage cutbacks planned by the HSE and their political masters will decimate what remains of the public health service. They are using the excuse of the recession, caused by their corruption and greed in the first place, to strip the public service bare and to press ahead with the privatising of our public health service. It is also being used to drive down workers wages and condition within the health service."

He said: "Contrary to the lies and spin emanating from the political and business elite, all of these cutbacks are completely unnecessary. While Brian Lenihan and Mary Harney say they cannot afford to properly fund our health service, they have no hesitation in pumping tens of billions of euros to bail out the banking sector and the wealthy business elite. They have no hesitation in squandering millions of euros on flying around on the government jet or to invite the English Monarch here on a state visit. The message is clear – the profits of the banks and the rich mean more to this administration than the health and lives of those who depend on the public health care system."

He added: "Despite the recession, Ireland remains a wealthy country, where the rich have got even richer while workers and those on welfare have been made to bail out the banks and developers. A wealth tax could and should be introduced to make the rich pay. Our valuable natural resources, which should never have been given away in the first place, must be nationalised and the hundreds of billions of euros worth of oil and gas utilised to create a first class health service for all."

Casey concluded: "If the government are allowed get away with these proposed cuts, the reality is that people who cannot afford private health care will suffer unnecessarily and even die as a result. We should not be surprised that this administration puts private profit before the health and well being of the people they claim to govern on behalf of but we have a duty and responsibility to not let them away with it. If we fail to stop what can only be described as the wanton vandalism and destruction of our health service then future generations will suffer greatly and needlessly."

More Photos

Sun Aug 08, 2010 22:24

Short Video

Sun Aug 08, 2010 22:41

Short Video from Yesterday

The Big Sleep ;

by Sceptic . - None whatsoever

Sun Aug 08, 2010 23:40

Well , here we are and its august 2010 , Mary Harney ( non party ) not elected by just
about every body in this island of ours, still 'in control' of that horrible H.S.E.

The same horrible H.S.E. continues to run this 'health service' like some form of S.S.
they tell you nothing , they overpay them selves ,they 'cant comment on individual cases' ,
they are full of wasters who behave as if they know everything , this is not right, its as
simple & straghtforward as that , we have collectively lost the will to fight our corner ,
the same faceless overpaid traitors of the h.s.e. couldn't run a pissup in a brewery ,
dont for one minute think that this comment will do a blind bit of good or indeed improve
this sad situation one little bit, because it wont , we are to blame , yes we the people who
are living in 'the self preservation society' are so well off and 'coshe' & have got to the
stage of our collective lives that we will put up with just about anything .

What is badly needed in this country is a good kick in the goolies and even that kick will
be tolerated by one and all , we are financing bogey banks , gangsters of politicians ,
corruption is everywhere , the streets are no longer safe to walk , corrupt members of
the legal profession never have to answer to anyone because they are not regulated ,
we bow and scrape to figures of authority who just laugh their silly billy heads at us in
return , and so on . We the People ought to hang our heads in shame, never mind the
likes of harney and her compratriots in government who have caused this mess in the first
place , wake up people of ireland , before theres nothing left to wake up for .

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Protest against Hospital Cuts - Letterkenny Sat Aug 7

Comments (5 of 5)