It was a standing room only at the New Grange Hotel. A woman wearing a visor mask using crutches arrived. Steward hurriedly added her seat near her front. Brigitte Quinn of Navan explained how she is in multiple states, the latest being a heart attack and expressing her concerns about plans to downgrade the emergency department of a local hospital. .. “I really need the hospital,” she said.
Kells’ eirdre Butler explained how the treatment of the injury saved her life. “I’m not here just for Navan. If I had to go to Drogheda, I would die,” she said. She laughed, “Dog will be treated sooner than A & E patients,” when she joked that a veterinarian would be brought in to help with medical services.
Carina Macari of Navan came when her husband Antonio was being treated in Navan. She was worried that others were not being treated. “Downgrade has already begun,” she felt. Similar concerns were expressed among 180 people at the meeting last Monday night. Everyone is concerned about plans to downgrade the emergency department at Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan to a medical evaluation unit starting next week.
In a strange case, HSE management explained the change to a local TD, and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly ran around saying no government decision had been made. The young people who run health services don’t even bother to tell the minister what they are doing anymore.
The conference’s all-star top table was provided by Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald and health spokesperson David Cullinane, who are supporting the “Save Navan Hospital” campaign, rather than creating an ED at Drogheda’s Hour Radio Bruld Hospital. rice field. Destination in serious cases.
Cullinane cites an example of an ongoing crisis at University Hospital Limerick, which began with the closure of the A & E in Nenagh and Clare in County Tipperary. This resulted in a “single point of failure”. “Does anyone want it to happen in this area,” he said rhetorically.
Emotions are rising. A public meeting will be held this week, and a rally will be held two weeks later. “Nothing in the world is as powerful as the community we stand with,” McDonald’s said.
Clinical experts say that 2,000 people arrive annually in Navan, which may be at serious risk due to the lack of professional care they need. The counterpoint is that Drogheda does not have the ability to undertake these cases.
The Sinn Féin party will, of course, be accused of promising everything, but the politician cited to support the argument against reform is as a local Fine Gael member of the Meath East. Helen McEntee, Minister of Justice, has openly criticized the move.
government”.
What McKenty’s first statement did not acknowledge was the concern of medical professionals about Navan. She was too busy to say, “Mies people have to attend paramedics outside the county.”
Within the county, Dr. Jerry McKenty, clinical director of Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan, said the hospital’s emergency department is not safe for critically ill patients and does not offer “the best chance of survival.” He pulled the county jersey. Dr. McKenty has won two All-Ireland football medals at Meath, the midfield dynamo of Sean Boylan’s cheeky team in the late 1980s. But he is also a highly regarded surgeon and medical consultant.
It’s a cheesy bargain to say that Helen McEntee is Gerry McEntee’s niece. so what? Family relationships are a bit of a drama, but it’s irrelevant.
But it is appropriate that the Cabinet Minister does not emphasize expert advice. Political and medical policy is to shut down emergency services in small hospitals due to safety concerns about staffing, expertise, and low patient throughput. Jerry McKenty was able to take care of herself and let politicians explain to people why she shouldn’t act on clinical advice.
“Politicians may disagree with me, but who believes? Staff working on issues every day, or politicians who say we’re wrong?” He asked on RTÉ Radio. rice field News at one..
Level 3 or Level 4 hospitals have essential emergency services, and Navan is not in that category and is neither. It’s not a center of excellence, it’s a local hospital with excellent staff.
Helen McEntee later admitted in Dáil last week that he wasn’t suspicious of “true clinical concerns,” but she didn’t shout it exactly from the roof.
Dr. Jerry McKenty and HSE are not just warning about the safety of the hospital. The star-studded Sinn Féin lineup is what Dr. Niall McGuire, a local general practitioner in Navan and the county branch director of the Irish General Practitioner University, calls him “a little more subtle.” When I presented something, it became ridiculous.
After participating in Navan’s previous campaign, he says he is now converting to the idea that Navan’s emergency department is “unsafe” for patients and should be closed. Despite the heckler from the crowd, he outlined his concerns and why he reached this view.
The next afternoon, at the Dáil Chamber of Commerce, Taoiseach Micheál Martin was pondering the fault line between the medical and political considerations of the southeast. For the past two decades, clinical expertise has been the driving force behind health care reform and “has made courageous political decisions” regarding the modernization of health services in the country, he said.
“Politics likes to ignore the rigorous advice from institutions that set different standards,” he said.
“No politician in any hospital wants to shut down anything. I have never met a politician who is willing to shut down a given service. Get advice on what is best for patient safety in your location. “
The prime minister was in the wrong place. He needs to make that “courageous political decision” speech around the table in his cabinet.
When locals need assurance, direction, and leadership, they only get a local jersey from a government politician. Helen McEntee’s parish pump, which ignores experts, is not suitable for a cabinet minister.