MORE THAN 10,000 people took part in a protest march in Navan, Co Meath, at the weekend in support of restoring acute services to Our Lady’s Hospital in the town.
In September the Health Service Executive removed emergency and acute surgery from the hospital with immediate effect.
In a statement at the weekend, however, it said the hospital was not closing.
Concerns raised by “clinical experts regarding surgical risks and patient safety” had “left the HSE with no option but to immediately cease certain surgical practices”, the statement noted.
The rally on Saturday had been expected to attract about 5,000 but a larger crowd took 25 minutes to walk through the town.
Speeches were relayed across the main shopping streets on a public address system and groups carrying banners indicated support was coming from across the county and not just the town and its environs.
The demonstration was described by organiser Peadar Tóibín of Sinn Féin, who is deputy mayor of Navan as “the biggest cross-community development in Meath”. To applause from the protesters he added: “We are only starting and we will continue to roll.”
A number of speakers said the northeast had suffered enough cutbacks in the health service. Anger towards Minister for Health Mary Harney and the executive was palpable and when Fianna Fáil Deputy Thomas Byrne addressed the crowd he was booed.
He told the protesters: “This hospital will not close. The Fianna Fáil representatives will not allow it to close.”
The crowd was told by local GP Dr Ruairí Hanley that it was time “to tackle the waste and inefficiencies and give P45s to the clowns who belong in a tent and not running the hospitals”.
Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said his constituents had seen the impact of the loss of acute services at Monaghan General Hospital and “no other region in this country has suffered as much as the northeast . . . we need a change of policy direction”.
Labour spokeswoman on health Jan O’Sullivan criticised Ms Harney over proposed cuts in the forthcoming budget. “The health budget cannot take any more cuts to frontline services . . . Mary Harney should not be Minister for Health.”
Fine Gael spokesman on health Dr James O’Reilly said the Royal College of Surgeons had no complaints about elective surgery at the hospital, “so why close it down? Where will all those patients go? We need to dismantle the HSE and put in a fair system”.
Tomorrow the outcome will be known of a ballot of Unite members who work in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.
The 295 union members are hospital porters and support staff at the hospital and are in dispute with the executive on what Unite says is “an ongoing dispute over health and safety issues”.
The ballot seeks a mandate for industrial action up to and including the withdrawal of labour.