Local doctors and medical professionals in Donegal have expressed outrage at recent comments which revealed that the planned Surgical Hub for the North West may have been moved from Letterkenny to Sligo after the lobbying of a Government Minister.
The revelations came about after comments that Sligo, Leitrim and South Donegal TD Marian Harkin made in local media in recent days.
Harkin, who is a Minister for State for Higher Education, revealed that as part of negotiations to join the Government as an Independent, she had lobbied for the location of the Surgical Hub to be changed from Letterkenny to Sligo.
She is a part of the Regional Independent group which is led by Michael Lowry – a group whose deal with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael helped to facilitate their return to Government.
A group representing 171 doctors and medical professionals in Donegal have expressed their disgust at the move, which they say has been made “entirely on political grounds… at the expense of patients living in Donegal.”
Group representative Dr Padraig McGuinness said in a statement this evening that the decision always flew in the face of what he says is “objective evidence” that the Surgical Hub must be located in Letterkenny.
“It’s all making a little more sense now. The objective evidence—from clinical need to geography, patient population, volume of day services, and co-location with surgical specialties—clearly shows that Letterkenny University Hospital is the optimal location if only one surgical hub is to be delivered,” Dr McGuinness said.
“This decision now appears to have been made purely on political grounds, at the expense of the 160,000 patients living in Donegal. This was one of the deals done to secure support from Deputy Lowry’s Independents.”
Another Donegal medical professional has said that if this decision was made purely for political reasons, she and her colleagues will be demanding that a second Surgical Hub be greenlighted for Letterkenny immediately.
Dr Aine Keating is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Letterkenny University Hospital, and she says that a meeting with Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill on Tuesday evening will put forward the case for Donegal, and that new clinical and demographic data will also be provided to support Donegal’s case.
“We simply cannot let this stand. We are due to meet the Minister again on Tuesday evening and will present further data. If Sligo has indeed been granted a hub as part of a political agreement, then in the interests of fairness, equity of access, and burden of need, we believe a second surgical hub must be delivered concurrently at Letterkenny University Hospital.”
In conclusion, Dr Padraig McGuinness said that the only path if that meeting is unsuccessful will be public demonstrations.
“If Sligo is granted a hub on political grounds and Letterkenny is not, resulting in worse outcomes for Donegal patients, we will be left with no choice but to publicly demonstrate the strength of local opposition and concern.”
