Archive for June, 2010
Downpatrick Green Party councillor Cadogan Enright condemned Trust management as “incompetent and unfit to run any organisation, let alone the hospitals within the trust area.”
Cadogan Enright said “The business case for the €64 Million hospital was consulted on. The new hospitals role in the overall trust agreed, the funds were drawn down and the state-of –the-Art facility was built last year. Management are now saying they forgot to ensure that Consultants in the Ulster and in Belfast were required to provide services at the new hospital, that Trust cardiactic technicians don’t have it in their contracts that they may have to run clinics at the Downe and that they can find no staff to hire in the midst of the worst recession and greatest level of unemployment world-wide for a generation. Thus they are cutting back on a whole raft of services.”
Green Cllr Enright said “Management is supposed to manage, we have known the plan for the new hospital for years, why is it news to them that they needed to plan ahead for staffing the hospital?”.
“More worryingly, Trust management are now building an new acute mental health unit at Lagan Valley Hospital in Antrim, and suggesting that the new 25-bed unit here in Downpatrick be closed within 2 years starting immediately with 5 beds and services transfer up to Lagan Valley. Downpatrick has always been a centre of “best practice” for mental health and the skills exist to run it exist in this area and in our new unit at the Downe. This is an appalling waste of taxpayers money and smacks of “ABCD” – “Anywhere But County Down”. Said Cllr Enright.
Cllr Cadogan Enright warned that “Over the weekend it has emerged that the failure to recruit for the consultant-led accident and emergency unit is leading to the Trust wanting to downgrade the A&E unit at the Downe and shut it at night-time after 10pm. The Trust is threatening us by saying that if they don’t act now, it could result in the sudden closure of the unit resulting from having the wrong staff in place as happened in Whiteabbey. The obvious answer is to get the right staff in place. “
“I have worked as a manager in businesses large and small for over 30 years, and I have never encountered less management ability in the implementation of a plan of any kind than I have with the Trust managements inability to deliver the vision and services proposed for the new hospital. Given that the Trust is repeatedly suggesting that either the Lagan or the Ulster Hospitals will provide the various services planned for the Downe, I feel we have to start considering if there a section 75 or equality issues to be addressed in the overall management of this project”, concluded Green Councillor Cadogan Enright.
The Green Party has expressed its disapointment with the recent no show of the SDLP at a vitally important meeting with local renewable energy companies and the planning service.
Green Party co-ordinator Mark McCormick said, “I was hugely disappointed at the absence of the SDLP last Friday from a meeting in which all political parties had agreed to meet with the Planning Service to protect several hundred “Green Jobs” in this area.”
“Local people and businesses were having planning applications for renewable energy refused, putting jobs at risk and exposing local businesses to future energy shocks.”
“Green Party Cllr Cadogan Enright organised this meeting and only representatives from the DUP and Sinn Fein showed up. It is of great concern that the largest local political party with 10 councillors, 2 MLA’s and an MP could not muster one person to show up to this vital meeting to look out for the interests of local businesses and our local green economy.”
“During the Westminster election the SDLP decided to adopt ‘Green Lingo’ in their election literature prior to the vote yet after the election when it came to real action on the Green Economy and local jobs it seems they are all talk and no action.”
“The SDLP were telling Green Voters on the doorstep that they have the Green Economy and the Environment covered and so “you can lend us your vote”. The SDLPs failure to attend such an important meeting will be a big disappointment to all those green supporters who were persuaded to lend their vote to the SDLP in the Westminster election,” he concluded.
Downpatrick Green Party Cllr Cadogan Enright stated that he had been informed by staff at the Downe Hospital of a new proposal from the SEHSCT (South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust) to close the new 25 bed acute psychiatric assessment unit at the Downe.
Speaking at a Community Meeting in Ardglass Cllr Enright said, “my sources tell me that senior management informed staff that the new 25 bed unit was to close within two years with 5 of these beds going in the next 6 months. It is apparently proposed to merge this service in Lagan Valley Hospital in Co. Antrim. It is claimed that no redundancies are proposed so presumably staff will be expected to commute to other trust hospitals in Antrim and in Belfast – adding to the five and half thousand people that have to commute out of Down District every day to get to work.”
Cllr Enright continued, “Vulnerable people are more likely to recover quickly with the support of family and friends. It is easier to persuade people at risk to enter a local unit. Demand is increasing for these sorts of services with alcohol and drug abuse particularly creating issues among the young.
Cllr Cadogan Enright said, “This appears to be another series of ‘stealth cuts’ aimed at closing the new Downe Hospital even before it has a chance to establish itself. Local people will remember how the Finneston House 40 bed acute psychiatric assessment unit was closed when the new 25 bed unit was opened on the 28th June 2009 in the new Downe hospital. Some people will remember how the reduced number of beds was justified by a supposed provision of ‘robust care in the community’.
Cllr Enright pointed out “Minister McGimpsey said last Tuesday that he did not have the resources to support care in the community and that these cuts where made ‘in Northern Ireland,’ and not part of the Lib-Con cuts impending from Westminster”.
“I call on all local community activists and political representatives to work together to oppose the cuts in acute psychiatric services and to campaign for robust care in the community. The Downpatrick area needs to maintain its status as a centre of excellence for mental health care – It will be a massive loss to the district if this strategic employment base was lost,” concluded Green Party Cllr Enright.
