SOS Daisy Hill members hold meeting with Health Minister

Committee Chairman Francis Gallagher welcomed the Minister and thanked him for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with representatives from his committee.

Mr Gallagher stated, “At our meeting we asked the Minister to look at how our health system is administered and to investigate various options to reduce bureaucracy and ensure the maximum level of funding is delivered to medical services rather than administrative expenditure.”

He continued, “It is essential that more autonomy is given to local doctors and nurses to manage budgets and maximise the level and quality of medical services for our community.

“In my opinion there is a need for the Minister’s Office and Department of Health to liaise more closely with local community representatives to discuss the future of Daisy Hill Hospital and my SOS Daisy Hill Committee is willing to act as a vehicle to make this work.”

Ms Sharon Loughran, SOS Daisy Hill committee member and local nurse stated, “I explained to the Minister the urgent need for the Department of Health to review its plans to centralise services as part of its strategic plan.

"Recent research conducted by international health consultants including the Nuffield Trust and others is showing that centralisation as a model is not working. Instead of reducing mortality rates, it is showing that mortality rates increase in a centralised health system.

"Louella Vaughan (Nuffield Trust) and Dr Brown (University of Cork) have recently completed a paper named ‘Time to Pause’ where it states centralisation of the health services is not working and a complete review of health services needs to be looked at again to develop a revised model which improves health outcomes rather than reducing them.”

Ms Loughran concluded, “I explained to the Minister the need for a complete review of the local Trust’s Recruitment Strategy to ensure the number of consultants, doctors, nurses etc are planned and recruited in a timely fashion to ensure the number of medical staff required are available at Daisy Hill Hospital to deliver the level and quality of health services expected by our local community.”

Mrs Mary Luckie, who is also a member of the committee and a former Daisy Hill nurse stated, “I questioned the Minister on why there had been such a drastic change in health services delivery over the last number of years.

"During my service in the Health Service at Daisy Hill Hospital, our delivery of medical services was always difficult but was delivered at a very high level, however over the last few years the reduction in the quality of health services and non adherence to patient dignity has greatly reduced.

“This is not a criticism of health staff but the implementation of a medical service which is dictated by finance has placed so much pressure on our brilliant health service staff and that has driven staff morale to an all time low.”

Mary concluded, “I urged the Minister for Health to review the current delivery model of health services and to implement a health service which can provide a health service which respects the dignity of patients and delivers a 21st century health service which are all proud of.”

Eddy Curtis SOS Daisy Hill Hospital committee member stated, “We explained to the Minister that our committee was very dissatisfied with the Department of Health and how they commissioned the 2021 Review of General Surgery in Northern Ireland.

"This review, in its terms of reference, stated a 12 week public consultation would be carried out to allow the medical community and general public the opportunity to query the findings of this report. This consultation was never conducted and goes against all good practice and queries the validity of the outcomes of the major recommendations made in Professor Mark Taylor’s Review of General Surgery in Northern Ireland Report.

"When our committee send an FOI to the Department of Health querying why this failure to carry out a public consultation was not adhered to as part of the terms of reference, their reply was extremely weak when they replied it would be consulted on, on a regional basis.

"The Review of General Surgery in Northern Ireland was a Northern Ireland-wide report and should have been consulted on a Northern Ireland basis.”

Eddy concluded, “We explained that the current process of consulting on major changes to medical services is not fit for purpose. The consultation on the Review of General Surgery and also stroke services at Daisy Hill Hospital was met with complete public and political rejection, with 10,000 residents attending a public rally and 12,000 written negative replies to the consultation being completely ignored. This is totally unacceptable.

"Why consult if you are not going to listen to the general public?”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Mr Gallagher thanked the Minister and his officials for attending the meeting and listening to the concerns of the committee and for his positive comments made by the Minister about Daisy Hill Hospital’s crucial position as an acute hospital in the Department of Health’s future plans.