The Minister for Health has said she is looking at how to manage the best way forward amid calls for surgical hubs in Letterkenny and Sligo.
No decision has been made yet on a business case being put forward by the HSE to base the hub in Sligo.
While the business case hasn’t yet been submitted, there are countless calls for a hub to also be established in Donegal.
In recent weeks, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, met with Donegal doctors, representing 171 clinicians who signed a letter to the Minister calling for a pause and a review of the decision to select Sligo University Hospital as a site for the hub.
Today, Deputy Charles Ward asked the Minister to outline what factors will be considered when choosing the location for a surgical hub in the northwest.
He said that transparency into the decision making process is ‘vital’.
The Donegal Deputy said: “This is not a Sligo versus Donegal issue, the north west region is already disproportionately disadvantaged in many ways and we shouldn’t be forced to fight over squeezed resources.”
Deputy Ward claimed that ideally two surgical hubs should be established to “address the imbalance in healthcare and to meet current demand” in the Northwest.
He went on to say: “All I can say, as someone on the ground in Donegal is, the case for a surgical hub in Letterkenny is overwhelming. The Donegal Consultants and GPs that you met with last week have outlined this to you in detail. I’m asking that you take their experiences and all the data presented into account, Minister. The public needs your reassurances that this decision will be data driven and free from influence.”
In response, Minister Carroll Mac Neill said: “I can assure the people of Donegal I will do precisely that and that I’m very committed to that region, and that is why I went there a number of weeks into being Minister for Health, to understand for myself. I cannot look at it on a map, I cannot look at drawings, I have to be there to understand the dynamics and to listen to people, which is precisely why I went, and precisely why I tried to engage in this way. No decision has been made, so if you just give me a little more time to work out how to manage it.”
Deputy Ward went on to describe the united shock and disappointment of all the Donegal public representatives when the HSE decided that no consideration would be given to Letterkenny University Hospital for the surgical hub, despite the overwhelming data presented to them on geography, population and demographics, day case numbers and staffing numbers of the hospital. “It’s hard not to feel despondent when faced with this,” the 100% Redress Party TD said.
The Minister for Health replied to this point, saying: “I think it’s also important to reflect on local hospital management and their responsibility to advance cases on behalf of the hospital. When I did meet Deputies from Donegal, I did go through the projects that had been advanced and supported, and recognised that there was, in my view, insufficient surgical ask by the local hospital management.”
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