This article is from page 6 of the 2013-01-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
THE prospect of Ennis General Hospital becoming a rudderless satellite of the Limerick-centred Health Service Executive has raised its head following the revelation that the flagship facility of Clare’s health service has no manager as of Monday of this week.
Frank Keane, who acted as the onsite manager of Ennis General over the past three years, has vacated the position to take up a new appointment as maternity and child health directorate manager in Limerick.
In bidding farewell to Ennis, Mr Keane admitted that staff at Ennis General were “unsure and concerned” with the situation at the hospital, with a slew of public representatives fearing the worst for a facility that has been severely downgraded over the last number of years.
“Look at what happened when we had absentee landlords in Ireland,” blasted former Mid Western Health Board member Cllr Joe Arkins, before adding that “management of Ennis General Hospital from Limerick will be a complete disaster and shows what the HSE thinks of health services in Clare”.
These words have been echoed by HSE Forum West member, Brian Meaney, on the back of confirmation that the high dependency unit at Ennis General has been removed because of staffing difficulties at the hospital.
“There has been no inter-action, explanation or any other communication informing the elected members on the HSE West Forum of what is proposed,” said Cllr Meaney. “Ennis will be out in limbo, its cause will not be fully articulated at corporate governance level within the HSE Mid West.
“Frank Keane has done a fantastic job in progressing a number of projects and Ennis benefitted from his time there, but now we have no indication of what process is going to be put in place to manage a hospital like Ennis.
“If a manager is not appointed to Ennis it will remain rudderless and will be a further downgrading of a hospital that has been completely denuded of its service, which we have accepted. The fear is that the hospital will simply morph by inaction and auto-pilot into a minor injuries unit,” he added.
Mr Keane has said that Ennis General Hospital “has a future, but a different future” and that services at the facility “are going to evolve in 2013”.
As part of this process, the Accident and Emergency Unit, which was downgraded from a 24-hour to 12-hour (8am to 8pm) service in 2011, is set to become a medical assessment and local injuries unit. Tue22January13