HSE fails to allay fears over downgrade claims

The HSE’s silence on claims that the accident and emergency department at Portiuncula Hospital is to be downgraded has led to more fears about its future.

And concern was heightened this week when the HSE refuted suggestions that the A&E department at Sligo General Hospital is set for a downgrade.

“Their silence is deafening”, declared Deputy Denis Naughten who said that there were now genuine fears that Portiuncula will ‘go down the same road’ as Roscommon Hospital where the emergency department was axed by this current government.

The move resulted in Deputy Naughten leaving Fine Gael and is now contesting the new Roscommon-Galway constituency as an independent candidate.

However, when Health Minister Leo Varadkar visited the hospital in Ballinasloe last month, he expressed his satisfaction with the plans for the emergency department for the coming year and certainly did not give the impression that it would be downgraded.

Late last year Deputy Naughten issued a statement said that the emergency department hours would be restricted from 8am to 8pm with patients having to travel to the already overcrowded A&E at University Hospital Galway at all other times.

He makes the point that the HSE did not issue a denial of this at any stage and yet felt obliged to refute any suggestions that the emergency department was being downgraded in Sligo.

The ‘rumour machine’ surrounding the future of the emergency department has been fuelled by continued fears about the future of the maternity department at the hospital.

This time last year it was stated that there are no plans to downgrade maternity services at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe by the Saolta University Health Care Group or the HSE.

That was according to the Chief Operating Officer with the Saolta group, who was responding to a question at a meeting of the HSE West Forum.

The operating officer said they were awaiting the outcome of the independent review into the management of a number of cases in Portiuncula.

He added that this would take a number of months, but reiterated there were no plans to downgrade maternity services at Portiuncula.