Former West Tyrone MLA speaks out about crisis engulfing local hospital

JUST over 15 years ago, a Carrickmore GP was elected to Stormont on the basis that he would defend the Tyrone County Hospital with all his might. Dr Kieran Deeny campaigned hard, and amassed huge local support – yet he was still unable to stop Omagh’s acute medical services from being dismantled.

Now, almost two decades on, Dr Deeny is watching on as the ‘disaster’ he and many other professionals predicted back in the early 2000s, finally comes to pass, with the looming suspension of emergency surgical services at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), outside Enniskillen.

“SWAH was never going to work,” he told the UH earlier this week.

“If, at the time, Omagh had been chosen as the site of the new acute hospital, things would have panned out a lot better for patients.”

Dr Deeny explained the conditions that he feels doomed SWAH from the beginning. He also claimed medical colleagues in Fermanagh allowed ‘selfishness’ to warp their judgement.

“This is exactly what we warned was going to happen, 15 years ago,” he said.

“What we are seeing today can be traced directly to the decision took in the early 2000s to choose Enniskillen over Omagh as the location for the only acute hospital in the south west.”

Dr Deeny explained that acute hospitals require a certain number of patients if they are to be sustainable.

The SWAH, he claims, never had a sufficient number of patients in its catchment area.

“SWAH was doomed from the start. Building an acute hospital on the western periphery of a west coast county with a population of only 60,000 was an idea that was bound for failure from day dot – and the senior medical people in Fermanagh knew it.

“They were blinded by a selfish desire to have as many services on their doorstep as possible.

“At the time, we were told that an acute hospital would require a minimum of 150,000 patients to be ‘viable and sustainable’.

“Without that number, you cannot attract consultants.

This is why, no matter how hard they try or how much they advertise, SWAH cannot get staff.

“The same problem extends to young doctors and nurses,” he continued. “They want to work where they can get experience dealing with as many different types of health problems as possible.”

Dr Deeny continued, “Look, there are 60,000 people in the whole of Fermanagh, and maybe 30,000 in the very west of Tyrone; leaving the SWAH catchment population at a grossly inadequate 90,000.”

“Plus, many patients in Omagh consider Altnagelvin their acute hospital, and many towards the east of the county – eg, the 9,000 patients in Carrickmore – choose Craigavon as their local acute hospital.

“If Omagh had been chosen at the time, we would, today, have two fully functioning and thriving acute hospitals west of the Bann, with each one looking after the hospital needs of over 200,000 patients, and having no difficulties at all in attracting and keeping consultants, or being recognised as full and legitimate training facilities of young doctors and nurses.

“This is not a matter of saying, ‘I told you so’, or crying over spilt milk.

“We simply need to acknowledge the atrocious decisions that led us to where we now find ourselves.”