Patients before Profit

A leaked HSE document given to South East Radio during the week states that the HSE plans to downgrade Wexford General Hospital's A&E unit to daytime only, and to remove Wexford's Mmaternity and Pediatric units, forcing patients needing these services to go to Waterford.
The HSE has responded by saying that this is only one of several draft documents being put forward for discussion, and that nothing is finalised yet. Hardly reassuring words. Now I'm not saying that this blog doesn't trust the word of the HSE or that this blog believes that those involved in the "reconfiguration" process are untrustworthy, but promises have been broken in the past.



HSE are gambling with the lives of Wexford people

 At the start of the Summer, twenty five beds were removed from Wexford General as a "temporary" cost cutting measure. The beds were to be returned in September. Those who voiced concern over this promise from the HSE and the management of Wexford Hospital, including Wexford SF, were labeled paranoid. The HSE then announced that the beds would not be returned until at least 2014, but its ok everyone because apparently Wexford doesn't need the beds.
Or so they believe in the magical world of HSE Bureaucracy. In the real world of hospital trolleys, waiting lists and general degradation of the sick, theres a different cconsensus. In the real world, the loss of those beds is called downgrading, something that the HSE deny is happening in Wexford at the moment. In the real world, the broken promises from the HSE and the management of the hospital is called lying through your teeth to the public.

Today Dr. Colm Quigley, head of the "reconfiguration" process at Wexford General, resigned for personal reasons. What a coincidence that he would come to this decision twenty four hours after the release of the leaked HSE document. Is Dr. Quigley a rat deserting a ship?
He denies that he is but he also said that those twenty five beds would be returned at the end of the Summer.
Liar, liar, pants on fire...
Dr. Quigley says that "reconfiguration" will eventually produce a better health system, which will include the creation of regional centres of excellence. A noble sentiment, and I'm sure we would all welcome these centres of excellence. But not at the expense of the loss of services at hospitals like Wexford.
The HSE has made balancing the books the order of the day, and have clearly forgotten that the welfare of the patient must come first.

Enniscorthy SF protest against health cuts

We live in a civilised society where we believe that people are entitled to such things as dignity and health care. We believe that health care is a right and not a privilege.
However since the formation of the HSE, there has been a general policy pushed by them to remove that right. The policy of taking the right to health care away from Irish citizens was clear in the popularisation of the two tiered health service and in the current reconfiguration/downgrading process currently being prepared for Wexford, and the greater nation.

Cllr Anthony Kelly & Ann Hogan in Wexford town last year

These actions spit in the face of the promises of rights for all laid down in our proclamation of 1916 and our democratic programme of 1919, and cannot be accepted by the Irish people. Previous generations of Irish people sacrificed all for their rights and the rights of future generations. If we do nothing now, how will history judge us?
The people of Wexford must take to the streets, not for a photo shoot on a Summers day, but for a prolonged campaign to combat any downgrading and ensure that future generations will have the right to good health care. Now is the time for action.