By Conor Sharkey

THE Western Health Board must clarify its plans for the future of Strabane's 'Out of Hours' service.

That's the demand from councillors of Strabane Council this week.

On Tuesday night, councillors voted to contact the Board's head of Primary Care Eugene Gallagher, amid growing concerns that the service could be transferred away from the town to a new central facility at Altnagelvin.

The move was proposed by Sinn Fein's Michaela Boyle, and unanimously agreed by all of her Council colleagues.

The move is in tandem with contact made by local MP Pat Doherty, who is concerned that the service will be moved when and a new Out of Hours Centre opens in Derry on September 30.

The MP told us, "In previous correspondence with the Health Minister and Western Health Board officials they said that while no decision had been made about the imminent transfer of Out of Hours from Strabane and Limavady they nonetheless alluded to a 'Benchmarking Exercise' into the performance of all Out of Hours in the six counties compared to what is happening in 'Britain'.

"They went on to say that one of the regional targets set for health and social services was the introduction of a more regionalised service. Most worryingly, they refused to give a guarantee that Strabane Out of Hours would not be transferred.

"This 'Benchmarking Exercise' was scheduled to be completed in May of this year and while its findings have still not been made public it is clear that a planned process now underway to try and centralise all Out of Hours at Altnagelvin.

redirected

"The new Centre at Altnagelvin will have additional capacity and the fact that an increasing number of people who phone for 'Out of Hours' in Strabane are now being re-directed to Altnagelvin is further evidence, I believe, of how the ground is being prepared to justify the centralisation of Out of Hours at Altnagelvin," the MP said.

The number of people accessing Strabane Out of Hours in each of the last three years has remained steady. in 2005 a total of 14,765 contacted the service, in 2006 it rose to 14,824 and 14,810 in last year.

These figures, the MP said, show no justification for moving the service to Altnagelvin.

"In my letters to Health Minister Michael Mc Gimpsey, as well as the Chief Executive and Head of Primary Care and Family Practitioner Support Services in the WHSSB, I have called upon them to provide guarantees that Out of Hours provision in Strabane will be fully retained.

"I have highlighted to them the constant high usage figures for the local service and outlined the scale of hardship and risk to peoples' health that would occur if Out of Hours were centralised at Altnagelvin.

"This includes: the logistical and financial burden for people with no access to private transport which would prevent many people from seeking the medical attention they require.

"It also incluses a further increase in distance from medical services for people living in rural areas of Strabane District; and the detrimental affect centralisation would have on the already high levels of ill-health and disadvantage that already exists in Strabane District.

"That is not to mention the additional burden that would be placed on an already overstretched ambulance service.

"For these, among other reasons, the health authorities now need to provide a solid guarantee that that the Out of Hours service at Riverside Health Centre will be fully retained," he said.

At the time of going to press, the Board was not available for comment.