This article is from page 17 of the 2011-02-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
HOSPITALS like Ennis General Hospital will always be an election issue. This was one of the many statements by Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin during his visit to the county town. What the former Minister for Health failed to realise or at least mention was that the issues around the hospital are the same before every election, the same issues that five years on from the last set of promises still have not been resolved. This time around a colonoscopy unit has been promised for the hospital that will be part of a pilot cancer-screening programme. That coupled with a € 15 million extension should give people some hope of a healthy service, but experience leaves everyone with doubts. Before the 2007 General Election the extension promised was an almost € 50 million development. All forms of promises were given about the future of the hospital, including the commitment from former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that the county hospital would not be downgraded. Five years prior to that, Independent candidate James Breen was elected to the Dáil when fears for the hospital’s future first surfaced. Nine years on and Breen is back in the ring, supported by the chairman of the hospital committee hoping to secure the seat he lost in 2007. Since he first entered the Dáil, the hospital has lost its 24-hour accident and emergency service as well as some acute services. There are still more acute services to be centralised to the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick and the people are meeting again ahead of the election to raise concerns and the issue is back on the table. When he came to Ennis, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny gave his party’s commitment that the reconfiguration of hospital services in the mid-west would cease until such time better replacement services were in place. “As I move around the country I am being asked by so many hospitals, can you restore facilities that have been taken away here and my honest an- swer is I can’t.” He said however services as they are in Ennis General Hospital would be retained until such time something better was proposed. Deputy Martin was more supportive of HSE policy. “Health is complex. We have to pull together in my view the critical mass of professional people and sufficient volume of patients to make sure we get best practice. I believe in that. I am not going to pretend to people that I don’t. I am not going to be dishonest with people and say we can do everything on every hospital site. There has been a bit of dishonesty on that debate along the way.”