The long distance which people in North Tipperary will have to travel for emergency services if the Accident and Emergency unit in Nenagh General Hospital is withdrawn will have to be taken into account by those implementing the Hanly report, a Fianna Fáil TD for the area, Ms Maire Hoctor, has said.
Ms Hoctor, who attended a protest march through Nenagh on Saturday over the Hanly report's recommendation that Nenagh A&E be replaced with a nurse-led minor injuries unit that would be open only during the day, said she shared the concerns of other marchers.
She added that what the people of Nenagh looked for - the retention of their A&E - would not be "a huge burden on the public purse".
However, the Hanly report has already been adopted as Government policy and is now to be implemented in two pilot regions including the mid-west and east coast area health boards. Ms Hoctor said the implementation groups, members of which are to be named within days, would accept submissions from those with concerns. "There is a provision made by the Government in the implementation of the Hanly report to take cognisance of the demographics and also the geography of each area. Like North Tipperary is a huge rural area and that has to be taken seriously into account." she said.
The other Fianna Fáil TD for North Tipperary, the Defence Minister Mr Smith, became embroiled in controversy over two weeks ago when he expressed concerns about the implications of the report for Nenagh Hospital. He said he did not want to see people living in outlying areas "sacrificed" on the "altar of the Hanly report". Mr Smith did not attend Saturday's march and his office said he had no comment to make.
Local people were not impressed by his failure to show up. Mr David King of the Nenagh Hospital Action Group said it was not to Mr Ahern he should have apologised, but to the people of North Tipperary who elected him.
Placards carried by protesters referred to Mr Smith as "Bertie's lap dog" and the fact that he was "muzzled". Mr Joseph Pollard from Twomileborris, near Thurles, was carrying one of them. He said Mr Smith had "let the side down".
"He showed his true colours. He stands for the people of North Tipperary but when his boss said jump he did. But we are his boss and not Bertie and we will let him know it," he said.
A Fianna Fáil councillor on Nenagh Town Council, Mr James Moran, said Mr Smith should have come out to the protest "and face the music". He believed Hanly should be "shredded".
Speaking to The Irish Times at the rally, Ms Hoctor said she did not want to comment on the Mr Smith controversy. She said one of the things she found difficult in the aftermath of the publication of the Hanly report on hospital reorganisation was that the Government had engaged a taskforce, which included medics, to come up with a formula for providing the best and safest services for patients. The taskforce, she said, had consulted with medical and nursing staff in the two pilot areas and now "we have some of them coming back to us the politicians and saying it's not going to work", she said.
Meanwhile, the Wexford Fianna Fáil, TD Mr Tony Dempsey, said yesterday he did not anticipate any diminution in services at Wexford General Hospital when the second stage of Hanly is rolled out across the country. However, he refused to speculate on what his reaction would be if services at the hospital were withdrawn.