‘Lives will be lost’ unless services are restored at hospital

Politicians from the main political parties have told a public meeting in Fermanagh that they support a campaign group’s proposals to restore services at the South West Acute Hospital (Swah).

Emergency general surgery was temporarily suspended at the Enniskillen hospital in 2022 and patients from Fermanagh have had to travel to Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry since then.

At the time the Western Trust said the suspension was necessary to protect the public’s safety, after it had problems recruiting surgical staff.

Campaigners say the distance and travel time, as well as poor transport infrastructure, put lives at risk.

The meeting was organised by the Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) campaign group, which has produced a discussion paper on the future of the hospital.

Jimmy Hamill is part of the group and he says there’s “strong feeling” in Fermanagh over the loss of services.

“There is spare capacity in our hospital. It has two operating theatres that have never, ever been commissioned, and 92 beds that haven’t ever been used.

We think this spare capacity can help to unlock a viable pathway to the long term, sustainable delivery of all emergency services, including surgery in the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen”.

When asked by an audience member to raise their hands if they backed the discussion paper, representatives from Sinn Féin, DUP, UUP, SDLP and Alliance all raised their hands.

Patricia Maguire from Boho was unable to get an ambulance for her mum when she fell ill last month. They were returning from an appointment at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry.

“When that was happening, when I saw her lying there, it was just horrible, because I thought there’s nobody here to help us. There’s nobody there for her.

“I thought my mummy was going to die because we couldn’t get service.

“We deserve better than this”.

Patricia’s mother has since recovered.

Eileen McGovern, who lost her daughter in a farm accident more than 30 years ago, says she lives in fear of another family going through that grief because of a lack of services locally.

“If anyone has an accident here in Teemore, or Derrylin or County Fermanagh it’s going to take them two and a half hours to get to to emergency surgery.

“The chances of their child surviving is minimal. The chances of them living for the rest of their lives, saying, ‘if only’.

“If only the ambulance could have come, if only we had had a hospital, if only somebody had emergency surgery for my child, that is unthinkable.”

“There are going to be lives lost. I believe already there are lives lost, there will be more lives lost, and there will be people who may have been saved from maybe the loss of a limb or whatever, will go through the rest of their life with a permanent disability that could have been avoided had we had our emergency services”.

A review carried out by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), which inspects healthcare facilities in Northern Ireland found that there were no immediate patient safety concerns at the Swah following the suspension of general surgery services.

The Department of Health said the discussion paper from SOAS would be considered alongside all other responses to its consultation on the reconfiguration framework for hospitals.

“In excess of 28,000 responses were received from SOAS. These have been recorded as individual responses and are being considered as part of the department’s analysis and response to the consultation feedback, alongside responses received online and via email”.

“For the whole HSC to work effectively we must build on the capacity and ability across all hospital sites to deliver.

This means we need all hospital space, but that not everything can be done everywhere”.