Report will recommend Portiuncula downgrade

A shock draft report has recommended that Ballinasloe’s 24-hour Emergency Department should close overnight.

And the leaked Saolta Hospital Group report suggests Portiuncula Hospital be downgraded to a ‘Type B Local Emergency Unit’.

This would relegate the Emergency Department (ED) to opening for twelve hours, between 8am and 8pm or for just ten hours a day between 8am and 6pm. Emergency cover would be provided from Galway City, under the plan.

University Hospital Galway’s Emergency Department is already full to bursting, suffers overcrowding daily and is ‘not fit for purpose’, according to An Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Local Independent TD, Denis Naughten, is using the ongoing government formation talks with Fine Gael to leverage commitments that the unit in Ballinasloe would remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In a letter to acting Health Minister, Leo Varadkar, who is on the Fine Gael negotiating team, Deputy Naughten threatened to pull the plug on supporting a minority government if this plan proceeds.

Deputy Naughten warned: “I want to make it crystal clear that I cannot and will not support a government which would preside over a situation where 24/7 ED services at Portiuncula Hospital are withdrawn, forcing many very ill patients to travel the equivalent of from O’Connell Street in Dublin to St. Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny.”

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.