The Mid Ulster Hospital currently has 22 specialist services, these services only treat a very small percentage of the population and is not good enough for the general population, we need services that are very day use not once ion a lifetime.
During the point of order I asked why the population plans that state the future of Mid Ulster Hospital being turned into this already agreed community hub were not available to the public, CEO of the NHSCT Sean 0naghy stated they were not important. These plans are important, so important that when health Minsiter edwin Poots addressed the Assembly on the 3rd July 2012 he mentioned the population plans no less than 15 times.
The public are being led and lied to again when it comes to the future of health, it was lies that shut the Mid Ulster partly down in 2006, again in 2010 and now in 2012, not since Developing Better Services in 2001 have Magheraflet council taken a stance to fight for the hospital which raises the question that they might also have made agreements in the past with the trust.
If anything the latest road incidents alone show us that life saving services are required for Mid Ulster residents and these services should be based in the Mid Ulster Hospital. The Council must show leadership and represent Magherafelt people and also have a duty to represent every resident in Mid Ulster, Mid Ulster hospital once served Mid Ulster residents, and the proposal to turn it into a community hub to serve Magherafelt residents only must be stopped.
The ambulance service cannot fill the gap left by an A&E, that has been proven, along with the inability of Antrim to cope with the shut down.
After this meeting part of the recommendations that Save The MId will be making to the health minister are:
- Move Antrim Area Hospital to the Belfast Health Trust - it is 17 miles from Belfast city
- Causeway and Mid Ulster hospitals to act as the 2 main acute hospitals in the NHSCT - this will truly give better access to emergency care in rural areas and help with Ambulance response times as ambulances will not get trapped in urban area
Hugh McCloy