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THE CHAIR of the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has raised concerns over what he described as a ‘disengagement’ with the Western Trust.
Opening a recent meeting of council, Cllr Barry McElduff suggested that relations have recently been strained between the local authority and the Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT).
Cllr McElduff said, “Last week myself and Alison (FODC chief executive) met with the Assembly Health Committee prior to their meeting in Enniskillen and their visit to the SWAH … and a lot took place that day.
“The WHSCT confirmed that the decision has been taken in respect of emergency general surgery at the SWAH.
“This is new information and is something we will want to look at as a council.
“There is a concerning level of disengagement from the Trust with us,” added Cllr McElduff.
“It has been pointed out to me, for example, that the chief executive of the WHSCT (Neil Guckian) hasn’t met with us for some considerable time … many, many months going into years I think.
“There have been other developments such as Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) cancelling their meeting with the Trust out of dissatisfaction with developments…
“We haven’t been appraised formally by the Trust of even a winter preparedness plan.
“We will want to establish what is going on.”
Sinn Féin councillor Debbie Coyle added, “I noticed myself last week that they (WHSCT) cancelled our November meeting (with) no future meeting planned at all.
“Our last meeting back in September was a workshop and I felt it was quite a successful meeting and yet they’ve not tied in with us at all.
“I would like to propose that we write to the Trust to find out exactly what their vision is and how they are proposing to tie in with the council.”
Speaking about the decision to remove the emergency general surgery, SDLP councillor Adam Gannon said that the public are now asking questions around the Trust’s decisions.
“I think (the Trust) really need to be interrogated because in effect what they’ve said is that the whole consultation was a sham; the decision was made. They lied to every single member of the public, every member in this chamber (and) every elected representative.”
