Any campaign to retain hospital services in the southeast needed a regional focus, said Waterford Fine Gael TD John Deasy yesterday before a meeting today between southeastern hospital clinicians and Department of Health officials.
Mr Deasy and clinical directors from Waterford Regional Hospital, South Tipperary General Hospital, Wexford General Hospital and St Luke’s in Kilkenny are to meet the secretary general of the Department of Health Ambrose McLoughlin.
The meeting comes after 15,000 people protested in Waterford at the planned reconfiguration of the four hospitals which will see the hospital group broken up. Waterford and South Tipperary General will be linked to Cork, and St Luke’s and Wexford linked to Dublin hospitals.
Mr Deasy said: “I still believe a majority within the hospital group in the southeast believe that leaving the hospital group intact is the best approach, and that’s the message that needs to be delivered loud and clear at tomorrow’s meeting.”
Meanwhile, a former chairman of the South Eastern Health Board, Labour councillor Séamus Ryan, has written to Minister for Health James Reilly saying he believed the existing structure had the capacity to continue to deliver a first-class service.
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