25 January 2001 Edition

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Monaghan and Dundalk fight to save maternity services

Ó Caoláin calls on minister to intervene



Cavan/Monaghan Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin has called on the Minister for Health and Children, Mícheál Martin, to intervene directly to avert the threatened closure of maternity services at Monaghan General Hospital. Ó Caoláin made his remarks on Wednesday as he participated in a delegation of Monaghan-based members of the North East Health Board (NEHB), who were meeting at Stormont with Health minister Bairbre de Brún.

Before the Stormont meeting Ó Caoláin said: ``Thousands of people throughout Co. Monaghan have for the past three weeks been signing a petition calling for the retention of their maternity services. They are incensed at the proposal to end these services at Monaghan, a proposal tabled again at the meeting of the North Eastern Health Board on Monday. Last November, the Health Board refused to accept in full a report which receommended closure of the maternity services. The Board decided that the service should remain in place until a fuller review was completed.

``Yet, at the Board meeting on Monday, the members were confronted with a proposal from the Chief Executive Officer for immediate withdrawal of maternity services, before this further review is initiated. The proposal was deferred until a further Board meeting next Monday, 29 January.

``There is unanimity across the political spectrum in County Monaghan in support of the retention and expansion of services for mothers and children at Monaghan General. This is reflected in the political make-up of the Monaghan representatives on the Board.

``I welcome the refutation by the Minister for Health and Children of reports in Ireland on Sunday that a number of hospitals, including Monaghan, faced closure. As he pointed out, a £10 million development plan was only last week approved for the hospital by the North Eastern Health Board.

``The Minister's commitment to the hospital, reiterated when I met him with my Monaghan-based Health Board colleagues last week, is welcome. However, the proposed axing of consultant-led maternity services at Monaghan runs contrary to the Minister's commitment to smaller hospitals. The closure is on the basis of strict adherence to a rigid quota of 1,000 biths per hospital per year imposed by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. This arbitrary number takes no account of the gross inconvenience and real hazard to people in this border county, and especially to the rural communities within it, of having to travel much greater distances to Drogheda or Cavan for pre and post natal care.


Cross Border Cooperation


``In meetings with Minister Martin and with the Acute Hospital Review Group in the North, I have emphasised the potential for development of Monaghan, including the maternity unit, as part of a cross border network of health services. The wider review of maternity services in the North Eastern Health Board Region, which this week's proposal from the CEO pre-empts, is tasked with addressing cross border cooperation as a key element of its remit.

``I call on Minister Martin to intervene directly at this stage to avert the ending of maternity services at both Monaghan and Dundalk hospitals. The responsibility to address the health needs of the people of this region is ultimately the minister's and he needs to listen and respond to the voice of all concerned with this critical situation, and not merely those who claim a professional monopoly of wisdom.

O Caoláin also paid tribute to the County Monaghan members of the North Eastern Health Board and the psychiatric nurses representative who, he said ``have worked together in an unprecedented and determined endeavor to save this critical service and to ensure the future of Monaghan General Hospital and all its services.

``This approach represents mature political action and signposts that cooperation, irrespective of results, is the required approach and the one that merits the greatest respect from the widest public. My commitment to continue to worlk with my County Council, Oireachtas and Health Board colleagues remains undiminished


Louth Council chair betrays voters



BY ROISIN DE ROSA

Forty thousand people in Louth have signed a petition to maintain and upgrade Maternity and Gynae services at Dundalk County Hospital, which Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan, Secretary of the Louth Hospital Action Group (LHAG), presented, last Tuesday to the North Eastern Health Board (NEHB).

What was his disgust when he learned that the previous evening, at a meeting of the NEHB, one of Louth County Council chairperson Nicolas McCabe (Fianna Fáil), had himself seconded the very motion to run down the service.

Arthur Morgan was enraged. ``It's nothing less than a betrayal of people here, who Councillor McCabe is elected to represent,'' he fumed. Arthur Morgan went straight to the council with a motion calling for the chair to hold an immediate emergency council meeting to discuss the issue.

``On whose behalf did Councillor McCabe think he was acting?'' Morgan asks. ``I believe he needs to explain to all of us councillors how he could directly oppose the strong feelings of the people here to keep a full maternity service in place. How can he feel free to knife us in the back?''

Threat to services

Last week, over 700 people crammed into a public meeting in Dundalk to protest the threatened closure of maternity services at the hospital. Feelings were very strong that the Maternity and Gynae units at Dundalk not only be maintained but extended to meet local needs.

The threat to maternity services follows the Condon Review, published last November, which recommended to the NEHB (covering counties Monaghan, Cavan, Louth and Meath) the closure of the full maternity units in Monaghan and Louth, and replacement by smaller, mid-wife led units. Instead there would be one NEHB area maternity unit at the Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, at least three quarters of an hour from Dundalk.

Rationalisation

The argument is `rationalisation'. To keep a full maternity unit open, under a consultant obstetrician, there needs to be at least 1,000 births per year, according to a directive from the College of Obstetricians. Arthur Morgan points out that the catchment area numbers some 109,000 people. The average birth rate in the population is reckoned at 15 births per thousand, which would bring the birth rate in the Dundalk hospital catchment area to 1,635, well over the requirement laid by the Colleg for the employment of a consultant obstetrician.

``It is important that maternity services be available locally,'' says Morgan. ``It is disgraceful that any government should even think to close down our local service.'' Doctor Mary Grehan, also a Louth county councillor and chairperson of the Louth Hospital Action Group says that ``all basic general hospital services should be retained. Maternity, Accident and Emergency, Physiotherapy, Dialysis, Chemotherapy, and so on. People need these services to be close by, near home.''

Local Democracy

``Councillor McCabe's position on this issue, clearly against the interests of the people in Couth Louth, raises important questions of local democracy,'' says Arthur Morgan. ``The councillors are elected to the Health Boards to represent local interests, not to act as rubber stamps to help push through whatever the government policy of the day may be.'' [Fianna Fáil has 13 seats on the 30-member Health Board].

``No wonder that we have the scandalous ongoing crisis in the hospitals, when the councillors, chosen to represent the area on the Health Boards, do not make themselves accountable to the council. Where is democracy in all of this?'' asks Arthur Morgan.

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