Sir, – The Fine Gael party obtained votes from the constituents of Roscommon-South Leitrim under false pretences during the 2011 general election campaign. It is the last time that the people of this constituency will be duped into voting for candidates who stood behind empty promises and who are now strangely silent in the face of life-threatening changes to the health service in Roscommon.
Irish electorate take note: closure of services at Roscommon is only the start of a string of broken promises to the people of this country.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Minister for Health James Reilly and deputies Denis Naughten and Frank Feighan should hang their heads in shame. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The statistic, as outlined by Minister for Health James Reilly, that cardiac patients attending Roscommon Hospital have a 21.3 per cent mortality rate, as compared with a 5.8 per cent rate in Galway University Hospital, is indeed a startling one (Dáil Report” July 6th). This demonstrates that it is of paramount importance that patient outcomes are prioritised above localised interests in the debate regarding the future capacity of smaller hospitals.
We live in straightened economic times and the health service therefore has to be run with the most efficient degree of resource allocation possible when taking patient safety into account.
The debate on Roscommon County Hospital should not be clouded by political point-scoring by Fianna Fáil, given that the reason more funding would not be available for the upgrading of Roscommon hospital to improve its cardiac care, for example, to a sufficient standard, has been in no small part due to its handling of the economy in recent years.
Micheál Martin is a former minister for health, so what would his alternative solution be, given the economic crisis we now have? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The reaction to the closure of Roscommon A&E is to be expected. The previous administration closed the cancer services in Sligo, despite continuing public protest. I doubt the restoration of services.
In the west, all services are now being directed at Galway. Can Galway cope? Is Galway regional hospital in the right location to serve the region as well as the city, for cancer services, for A&E and everything else?
One of the key issues in planning public service is accessibility. Travel time to hospitals is critical, for AE patients for obvious reasons, but also for out-patients attending day procedures. Here is a radical suggestion: relocate Galway Regional hospital to a greenfield site east of the city, located as close as possible to the proposed interchange of the M4 and the N18/17, about eight miles from Galway city centre. This idea would probably be unpopular in Galway city, but we need to solve a regional problem.
The land the hospital would release near the city centre and university would present an opportunity to create wealth for Galway.
Even in these hard times it would be valuable real estate, and the new regional would still be very accessible from the city. It would bring the hospital services much closer in travel time to Roscommon, and if the N18/17 were upgraded to dual carriage the same applies for Sligo and towns en route.
We have to accept the merger of services to allow for proper delivery of services, but the country can be made smaller and hospitals made closer with reduced travel times. The idea of locating services on motorway junctions is nothing new – just look at all the tin sheds we have at motorway junctions selling paint, and garden furniture. The retail trade have made their mega stores accessible like this for one reason, so lots of people can get to them quickly from as wide an area as possible.
When it comes to planning hospital locations, we can learn a lot from retailers who have moved out of town. If the Atlantic Road Corridor (N17 and N18) was prioritised for completion as dual carriageway standard all the way from Sligo to link up with the Gort bypass, the travel time to the new “Galway and Western Regional hospital” would be much more acceptable from all directions.
With good quality dedicated bus services to the new regional hospital, there is the potential to have a regional interchange bus station located at the hospital on the junctions of N17/18 and N4. The new “Galway and western regional” would be within one hour’s drive of most of the region’s towns by emergency ambulance, and very accessible for public transport. It would still be accessible quickly from Galway city. But we need to build this infrastructure first.
When it is in place, we wouldn’t have contentious closures of units but proper transfers of services to acceptable and above all accessible new locations in terms of travel time. There will be compromise involved for everyone – but this would provide a regional solution for hospital services in the west.
The days of lots of small local hospitals providing top level modern services simply are not possible. We need to pool resources, but the solution needs to be part of a wider mix of infrastructure development. – Yours, etc,