BY MARK McKELVEY
COMMENTS made by a Fermanagh based assembly member have been fully welcomed by West Tyrone MLA's stating they reaffirm that acute hospital services should be located in Omagh.
Arlene Foster DUP MLA, was quoted this week as saying, "You cannot put a price on losing acute services from a community."
She was warning against government plans to outsource clinical tests from the Erne Hospital, which Mrs Foster believes could lead to "loss of life" as urgent blood samples would have to be transferred for analysis at the nearest largest acute hospital - Altnagelvin.
Mrs Foster claimed that the poor roads infrastructure in the West will mean it would take too long to ferry these samples between the institutions - a major argument locally for retaining acute services in Omagh.
West Tyrone MLA, Tom Buchanan, who is a party colleague of Mrs Foster, stated her comments have proved that a hospital in Enniskillen is not sustainable.
"When I heard this statement, I first thought was that it is good to see that Fermanagh people are beginning to awaken to reality - coming to see that what we have been saying in Omagh for years is coming to pass," declared Cllr Buchanan.
"We have prophesised this serious threat to acute hospital services in the South-west and Arlene quite rightly has said "if this service is not available that the new hospital in Enniskillen will not be an acute hospital".
Cllr Buchanan continued, "This is what we have been continually saying in Omagh for years - that a new acute hospital placed in Enniskillen will not be sustainable and therefore will not be an acute service.
"I hope that now the Fermanagh people, in now seeing this, will join the people in Omagh in fighting for a new acute hospital in the South-west in a location where it is going to be sustainable.
"I think it is time both areas unite under one voice saying we need a new acute hospital. Not in Enniskillen as it is in the periphery but in a more central location, and the central, sustainable viable option for me is Omagh."
Hospital campaigner and Independent MLA, Dr Kieran Deeny believes Mrs Foster's comments add to the argument that acute services should be reinstated in Omagh.
"It is an amazing statement - I think it is wonderful and would welcome Arlene Foster to come to Omagh and say this," stated Dr Deeny. "I am going to thank her for that statement and use it when discussing this issue further at the next health committee meeting."
Agreeing further with these comments Dr Deeny said, "I couldn't agree more with her sentiments, there is a poor road infrastructure in the West, which highlights exactly the same problem in Tyrone of ferrying very ill and close to death patients between the institutions. We are talking about very ill patients, she is talking about blood samples, so it applies even more to these ill patients here.
"Her reasons for these things are spot on, but they can be applied in an even more worrying, life and death way in Tyrone - sick children for example. She is talking about blood samples, we are talking about people's lives."
