Save The Mid
Community Group For Mid Ulster Hospital
Dear Mr Poots,
This is a Letter from Save The Mid, the community group for Mid Ulster Hospital, these are as everyone one is agreed telling times in the provision of Health in Northern Ireland, big decisions have to be made, the view of the group however poses the question;
“Do we keep buying into the mistakes of the past or do we build for the future?”
Mid Ulster Hospital was a shining example of a rural proofed acute setting, located centrally in Northern Ireland was run down and now is in the final phase of shutdown.
Save The Mid urge that a decision be made to halt any further cuts in services from the Mid Ulster Hospital and in turn ask for a fundamental review into the provision of acute health care in Northern Ireland. Within the review we ask that Mid Ulster hospital be returned.
As was made aware in the run up to the election wards 2 & 3 at the Mid Ulster Hospital are to be removed, 28th May & 5th June respectively. Following this removal Save The Mid can also confirm that Thompson House will be removed as per information gained through sources within the Trust.
Thompson House will also be removed and used to house a GP practice that will be removed from the Diamond Centre in Magherafelt following the decision by the board of the Northern trust not to renew its lease.
As per the Hayes Reports / Developing Better Services, as brought forward by former health minister Barbie De Bruin, as to which any equality impact assessment on health services will be based upon, the Mid Ulster hospital was to serve as a local hospital. A Local Hospital was defined by Hayes as having among others;
Inpatient beds, including;
Acute Medical beds for patients not requiring 24 hour consultant oversight
Step-down and convalescence beds for those patients requiring post-operative care following discharge from a larger acute facility
Respite care beds for carers requiring respite for a number of weeks per year
Palliative care beds for patients requiring this support
Rehabilitation beds including those for patients requiring rehabilitation following a stroke, accident or fracture, or who are suffering from the debilitation of old age and chronic rheumatoid conditions.
This now will not occur if the Northern Health & Social Care Trust are allowed to act independently of government control and outside of what both Domestic and Direct rule Ministers.
http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/hospital_statistics_inpatient_activty_2009-10.pdf
Between 2005/2010, there has been a decline in the number of inpatient beds available in hospitals across Northern Ireland. The reduction of 962 beds in the five year period will be further impacted upon by the removal of beds at Mid Ulster, Braid & Whiteabbey hospitals.
Declining beds in Northern Ireland with an extra approx. 43 to be removed from Mid Ulster Hospital by the 5th June 2011, a move that runs contrary to Developing Better services as published from the consultation document known as the Hayes report. The loss of these beds will see an overall reduction of 27,305 bed days per year within the Northern Health & Social Care Trust, and a move that can only be seen as incompetence by Board members given the current capacity issues in the remaining Acute Hospitals.
Key Statistics;
In 2009/10 the Mid Ulster hospital had the equivalent of 94.7 beds that were occupied 88.4% throughout the year, the second highest of all occupancy rates.
http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/hospstats_01_sect1.pdf shows that Mid Ulster had 189 beds, of which all were acute medical beds, according to Hayes the only hospital in Northern Ireland that had a complete quota of medical inpatient beds.
A&E
According to Performance Reports from the Northern Health & Social Care Trust residents of the Trust now face the longest recorded waiting times in the history or Northern Ireland, these waiting time although bad are an under estimate as the creation of the short stay and clinical decision wards at Antrim Hospital are technically trolley waits.
Ambulance
Mid Ulster now sees some of the worst ambulance response times in Northern Ireland with only 41% of calls being responded to within the 8 minute target for the first quarter of 2011.
Save The Mid are asking that an immediate decision be taken on the Northern Trusts decision to removed inpatients from the Mid Ulster Hospital until such a tie you are satisfied that the decision to remove Mid Ulster Hospital is correct and in the best interests of residents in Northern Ireland.
Yours
Hugh Mc Cloy Chair – Save The Mid
Yvonne Mc Coy – Vice Chair Save The MId