The Government-backed Hanly report on the reorganisation of hospital services was condemned as anti-rural and socially destructive by a group of doctors campaigning against its implementation yesterday.
The doctors spoke out against its plans to reduce A&E units in smaller hospitals to minor injury units led by nurses, at a press conference in Dublin.
Dr John Barton, a consultant physician at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, said 50 per cent of bed days in hospitals were taken up by people over the age of 65 and, under the new regime, any of these who had acute medical conditions would have to be treated in larger hospitals far away from their families and local communities.
"This is fundamentally wrong and socially destructive," he said.
Furthermore, he said the UK - which had been centralising hospital services for two decades - was moving back towards providing services from local hospitals. He couldn't understand why the Republic was doing the opposite. "This report is driving people in rural Ireland crazy," he added.
Dr Christine O'Malley, a consultant geriatrician at Nenagh General Hospital, said the Hanly report had been described as the distilled wisdom of the medical profession but it clearly wasn't. She described the report as unimplementable in the time frame available. Its goal is to reduce the hours of junior doctors to 58 hours a week by next August.
A march to protest at the report will take place in Nenagh on Saturday.