The North's Minister of Health, Ms Bairbre de Brun, has insisted that her decision to centralise Belfast maternity services at the Royal Group of Hospitals in west Belfast is final, despite criticism from a number of quarters.
The Sinn Fein Minister and West Belfast Assembly member said the decision to build the new maternity hospital on the site of the Royal Group was not political but based on the best professional advice available, and taken after a wide-ranging period of consultation.
Her announcement yesterday has disappointed and angered those who campaigned for maternity services to be based at the City Hospital's Jubilee unit in central Belfast, and overturns a recommendation favouring the Jubilee by the Assembly's health committee.
The Department of Health's plan is to replace the Jubilee with a modern cancer unit. A departmental spokeswoman said it was hoped there would be no redundancies as a result of the decision, and that staff would be transferred to the new maternity hospital.
The Minister has begun the process of transferring maternity services from the Jubilee to the Royal. She said she expected the new maternity hospital would be built at the Royal site in the next five to six years. In the interim, services would be combined at the existing Royal Maternity Hospital.
"I want to assure people that my decision is based solely on what is best for women, mothers and babies," Ms de Brun said.
"My conclusion was that maternity services would be more clinically effective if located adjacent to regional paediatric services at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and near to the [Royal's] accident and emergency department."
A special task force has been set up to save the South Tyrone Hospital. The local council has joined forces with the South Tyrone Action Group to compile a blueprint for presentation to Ms de Brun.
The Dungannon hospital has already lost a number of its acute services, including maternity and accident and emergency, and there are fears that a further reduction could lead to closure.
