Older people ‘refusing’ to travel to Altnagelvin Hospital

OLDER people living in the Omagh area are refusing to travel to Altnagevlin Hospital in Derry for surgeries due to the long distances that they are required to travel, it has been claimed this week.

Sinn Fein’s Anne Marie Fitzgerald made the claim at a meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s Health and Social Care committee on Tuesday afternoon.

The proposed centralisation of many hospital services to so-called ‘centres of excellence’ could in the future mean people having to travel long distance regularly to receive treatment and care for different conditions.

Cllr Fitzgerald said that stays in the hospital were leaving people feeling ‘socially isolated’ and their families reluctant to travel to the hospital due to the longer distances involved.

“I can see a huge difference in the anxieties of patients. It’s getting to the stage now where people are refusing to travel to Altnagelvin surgical-wise, especially the elderly. It’s a huge pressure on them,” she said.

“They are feeling socially isolated and bad for their families to have to travel that long distance. It’s also having a huge impact on them financially. 15 or 20 years ago, the demographic started changing and we’re now seeing that coming into effect with more elderly people having to go to hospital.”

Teresa Molloy, Director of Planning, Performance and Corporate Services at the Western Trust, told the meeting that they were keen to stress the work that they had done to try and continue treating people at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen.

“We absolutely recognise that those who do have to be admitted to Altnagevlin do have a long journey. We are trying to minimise the impact on those patients by ensuring that they are repatriated to SWAH or transferred to home once they are surgically able,” she added.