This article is from page 4 of the 2008-03-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
A GREEN Party politician and one- time PRO of the Ennis General Hos- pital Development Committee has asked if the time has come to recon- sider protesting for the county hospi- tal’s future.
Instead, Cllr Brian Meaney has sug- gested that it may be time to consider fundraising for the hospital so that the HSE cannot use its budget deficit of approximately €2 million as an excuse to downgrade the hospital.
“No one is going to supply that from the central fund. So has it be- come time to fundraise?” he asked.
The frustrated councillor, who 1s also one of Clare’s four representa- tives on the HSE West Forum, said that he received numerous assur- ances from the HSE that the review of acute services (The Teamwork Re- port) would not affect the upgrade.
“The HSE have since informed me that the opposite is, indeed, the case and the review will determine how, when or if the proposed upgrade will
take place,” he said. “A deception has taken place. The HSE are implicated in conspiring with the political system they seek to distance themselves from, in order to ensure a specific outcome in the last general election.”
Cllr Meaney has written to Clare’s four Oireachtas members asking them to ensure that the HSE sign off on the proposed upgrade of Ennis General Hospital.
“The project is before the National Estates office, who are refusing to sign off until the review of acute
services is published,’ he wrote.
In his letter Cllr Meaney states, “The ongoing delay in progressing the upgrade of Ennis General Hospi- tal is making the project less viable. The projected cost, as of now, in or- der to complete the project has been put at €46 million, yet there is only €39 million allocated.
‘Please use your offices to further an outcome from the estates office of the HSE, so that the people who de- pend on these services know where they stand in the future,” he said.