HOSPITAL CAMPAIGNERS in Roscommon who are calling for a protest vote against the Lisbon treaty stepped up their campaign at the weekend when they erected posters throughout the county.
The Roscommon Hospital Action Committee (HAC), who are opposing the transfer of inpatient surgery to Portiuncula hospital in Ballinasloe, erected posters on the approach roads to towns and villages urging the public to support the hospital by voting "no".
The committee said this was the only way of getting the Government to listen to people's fears that the downgrading of the hospital would cost lives.
"The Lisbon treaty is a priority for our Taoiseach so we are saying we will not support you on this if you will not support us with our health services," said John McDermott, vice-chairman of the HAC.
He conceded that the treaty would have no impact on health services but he insisted that the committee had no apology to make for seeking to defeat a treaty which many argued would be good for the country.
"We are saying to people that nobody will die if you reject the Lisbon treaty but people will die if surgical services are removed from our hospital. Consultants at the hospital have confirmed this publicly," he added.
The posters were erected days after the Fianna Fáil "yes bus" visited Roscommon and were significantly outnumbered by Fianna Fáil posters calling for a 'yes' vote.
The mayor of Roscommon, independent councillor John Kelly who had proposed the anti-Lisbon strategy at a recent public meeting in Roscommon, expressed outrage yesterday when a meeting between the HSE and the county council about the hospital issue was called off.
The mayor said he had been told 45 minutes before Alan Moran, hospital network manager with the HSE West, was due to meet councillors, that the meeting was to be "rescheduled". He claimed that the decision not to proceed with the meeting was "politically driven" and an attempt to avoid questions about the hospital's future.
Local Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten has already criticised the fact that the meeting was to be held "behind closed doors" in the absence of the press.
In a brief statement, the HSE said the meeting was being rescheduled at the request of the director of the National Hospital's Office. "This meeting will be rescheduled as quickly as possible and the HSE has apologised to councillors for inconvenience caused," it added.
Mr Naughten revealed last week that he had received confirmation at a meeting with Mr Moran that inpatient surgery would end at the hospital by the end of this year.
He said the plan had been approved by senior management at the HSE on April 29th last and he had been informed that once a new general consultant was recruited for Ballinasloe, that the process of transferring all inpatient surgery from Roscommon would begin.
Mayor Kelly claimed yesterday that Fianna Fáil TDs were hiding behind the HSE when they argued that the decision to downgrade Roscommon Hospital was not Government policy.
Local TD and Junior Minister Michael Finneran has consistently claimed he was given an assurance by the HSE in September 2006 at a meeting attended by the Minister for Health that plans to transfer inpatient surgery would be withdrawn.
However, documentation obtained by the Roscommon Heraldnewspaper under the Freedom of Information Act show that officials interpreted the meeting differently and reported that Mr Finneran had been told that the services would remain in Roscommon "for the foreseeable future".
Mr Finneran told the newspaper that there had been no misunderstanding and that the question of the foreseeable future did not arise.
