The most urgent Capital Priority and counter proposal when answering the Southern Trust Emergency Surgery Consultation is to build a Major new Specialist Acute Hospital in Newry city – not a community treatment centre.

This Capital Priority needed right now for Newry & Mourne is funding and business plan for a Specialist Acute Hospital building for the area, as agreed at Government level in 2005 so it is LONG overdue.

According to the Southern Trust, the Department of Health NI has allocated £4.5 million to spend on progressing acute health services in Newry city. The Trust says this funding was to purchase a site at Abbey Way, Newry and associated design for a new community treatment centre.  But to progress acute services they should be provided in an ACUTE HOSPITAL  in Newry just like in Craigavon – not just in a treatment centre.  The £4.5million site, at Abbey Way, Newry, is large enough and the ideal place for a NEW Major Specialist Acute Hospital Building.

Official statistics have proven over and over that the large size of the growing population in the long established settlement in Newry & District justifies funding for a new build major Specialist Acute hospital in Newry City, as since 1971, Newry & Mourne LGD has always been in the top 4 highest populations in NI (after Belfast, Lisburn (Greater Belfast) and Derry) and Newry & Mourne LGD is projected to be the 3^rd Highest by 2026. (A higher population than Derry) (NISRA)

Funding plans for a new hospital to upgrade Daisy Hill Acute Hospital were announced for Newry by previous Secretary of State, Sir Peter Hain in 2005 to match the population size.  This funding has still not been followed up by the Southern Trust in their Capital Priorities Programme submitted to the Department of Health/ DoH, but the population has not forgotten.

Building a new Specialist Acute Area Hospital building in Newry could then complement the Daisy Hill Hospital building, if the intention is to reconfigure Daisy Hill into a ring-fenced elective care centre (instead of a specialist acute hospital) as the Southern Trust have proposed.  

The proposed removal of Emergency Surgery from Daisy Hill Acute Hospital, Newry city to Craigavon is forefront in people’s minds. At the recent public meeting in the Canal Court Hotel, the few people who were allowed to speak made it clear to the Southern Trust representatives there that they were totally opposed to removal of emergency surgery, and questioned the Trust’s constant removal of acute services from Newry, as well as the Southern Trust’s failure to provide beds for patients and diagnostic equipment for Staff in Daisy Hill, Newry city.

If the DoH and Southern Trust are now ready to offer some long overdue capital investment to actually provide specialist acute services in a specialist hospital in Newry instead of transferring services, beds and equipment to Craigavon, then the people of Newry & Mourne, South Armagh and surrounding areas may well be interested in their proposals.

If the Southern Trust fail to provide for the Newry & Mourne population, and keep up this policy of transferring specialist services to Craigavon, they will be called out on this as it goes against the Rural Needs Act and other legislation. 

Calls for fair treatment can be expressed through talking to Councillors, asking for an emergency Council meeting and through responding in writing to the Consultation on Emergency Surgery.

The Southern Trust need to listen to what we want – not continue telling us what we can’t have.

This is the one and only chance in your lifetime you are ever going to get to write to the Southern Trust what you want, what you pay for through Rates and Taxes, and more importantly what you are entitled to.  The Southern Trust have a statutory duty to take into account in their decision making and responses, any suggestions you make in reply to the consultation on removal of emergency surgery from Newry to Craigavon.

That is why when 19,000 people including over 12,000 people from this area opposed the centralisation of Stroke services to Craigavon, Altnagelvin and Belfast the Department of Health couldn’t go ahead with their unfair proposals because of the opposition. 

We have a right to challenge the constant removal of Specialist Acute Services especially Emergency Surgery and Emergency Medical Services from Newry to Craigavon.

Daisy Hill for Life is asking people of Newry, Mourne and Down to write NO to the questions in the Southern Trust Consultation Questionnaire on centralising Emergency surgery to Craigavon.

Please also speak/write to your Councillors, MLAs, MPs and Trade Unions asking them for their support in rejecting the Southern Trust’s proposal to remove Emergency Surgery from Daisy Hill Acute Hospital, Newry. (How to contact them : see this page: https://savedaisyhillhospital.com/how-you-can-help/ )

Please also ask for their support for the need for the long overdue Major new Specialist Acute Hospital Building in Newry – not a community treatment centre.    A new Major Specialist Acute Hospital building will also bring huge economic benefits to Newry, including construction jobs.

IMPORTANT RELATED CONTENT

(See also : https://savedaisyhillhospital.com/2020/02/04/newry-mourne-local-government-district-lgd-ranks-in-the-top-4-lgds-in-all-northern-ireland-consistently-since-1971-so-where-is-the-matched-funding-for-daisy-hill-acute-hospital-newry/

Read how Newry & Mourne Local Government District was incorrectly made to look like the smallest population in Southern Trust area when it was really the largest, in a crucially important Population Plan Table, created in 2013 for the influential ‘Transforming Your Care’ Health Review – Playing with numbers, playing with people’s lives

This article also gives vitally important information on the population sizes of the 5 Local Government Districts which make up the Southern Health and Social Care Trust operational area.

Information on this and other similar topics is also available at the companion Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/daisyhillforlife/ Please Follow or Like the Page to receive updates. Thank you.

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