It is of paramount importance that the public realise what really is happening to our town and to our county. Not one member of this great community has been nominated to the new board which replaced the destructive Sperrin Lakeland Trust. We have been denied our rights to be represented. Efforts to close our hospital appear to be paramount to the new board and, unless we get your renewed support now, we will continue to be third class citizens with a cottage hospital and devoid of acute and emergency services, children's wards, maternity, or care for the old.
Our existing and much loved hospital and the valuable grounds appear to have been handed over without our knowledge or consent. We and our families will then be entrenched in unfathomable debts for the rest of our lives (again without our consent). We will have a building not at all suitable for the huge population or the quality of care to which we are entitled under our human rights, and to which standard we had become accustomed. Robbed also forever will be our facilities to train people in nursing and medicine. Why are we accepting this?
Take for example the latest ruthless betrayal. Children who require overnight stays after operations are unashamedly being accommoded in local B&Bs. This is totally unacceptable and a waste of money. By dumping responsibility on to unsuspecting operators, children are being denied the standard of care the Health Service ought to be providing. No thought was given to how other guests would react, the possibility of transfer of infections, or the huge responsibility this would place on the B&B operators. Patient care? This disgraceful tactic must not be condoned. Children and B&B operators are being put at risk.
Consultants accept our hospital is suitable for operations, and are very happy with our theatres, therefore the management ought to be suitably placed to provide after-care. This is yet another devious exercise to reduce waiting lists but carefully kept from appearing on fabricated wall-charts.
The Amublance Service is also a total disaster (as is a well known and much published fact) and the drivers are being instructed to by-pass our hospital, even if, as Dr Deehan has pointed out, the accident occurs at the Swinging Bars.
We cannot leave this crucial matter to those good people who have been fighting the brave battle for years and who themselves have to apply for12 minutes speaking time at the board's fabricated meetings.
We want a hospital not an apology for a hospital. We want what we will have to pay for. Where has our money gone? People in Scotland won their rights to have their acute hospital retained by protesting strongly.
This is your final chance. It is your hospital.
Iris McCann
Omagh
