Penrose slams HSE over Mullingar Hospital
Issued : Thursday 3 December, 2009
Statement by Willie Penrose TD
The fact that Mullingar Hospital was taken off call today, now means that people who need urgent treatment will have to be brought for their treatment to other hospitals in the region.
This situation was all-too predictable and as recently as 12 November, during an adjournment debate in the Dail, I pointed out that in the light of the closure of 41 acute beds in Mullingar that this outcome was inevitable.
Unfortunately my predictions have proven to be correct, and as a result, people in Longford and Westmeath who need to be admitted to hospital will have nowhere local to go. This is outrageous and the HSE and this Government are treating the citizens of Longford-Westmeath as second-class citizens.
This slash and burn approach by the HSE has been done without formally discussing these steps with the consultants physicians who have expressed concerns that closing that number of beds would have a serious impact on the capacity of the hospital to deliver a decent and safe service for local communities.
I have lost all faith in the HSE, as I personally have been fooled by them once too often. The HSE must address this situation as a matter of urgency.
This Government stands indicted for its failure to deliver to Mullingar what was promised, and no amount of mealy mouthed excuses from Fianna Fail politicians either at local level or national level can disguise this irrefutable fact.
I am calling upon the HSE Management and relevant authorities to tackle this most serious problem as a matter of extreme urgency. The Government and the HSE think nothing of riding roughshod over the people of Longford and Westmeath. This has to stop now, and they are not going to get away with this. I recently communicated with them, proposing a way of reducing the impact of the loss of these acute beds, but they did not even afford me the courtesy of a reply.
