Hospital action groups across the State are ready to mobilise at a moment's notice against any attempts to reduce services at local hospitals along the lines set out in the controversial Hanly report, the Dáil health committee was told yesterday.
The committee heard submissions from several campaigners against the report. They believe that despite the fact that the so-called Hanly II group has been disbanded, the original report is still a threat to smaller hospitals.
The Hanly II group, chaired by businessman David Hanly, was due to draw up a plan for implementation of the Hanly report across the State. However earlier this year, after its work had been held up for months as a result of a boycott by hospital consultants, it was disbanded by Minister for Health Mary Harney.
The Hanly report had recommended accident and emergency units at smaller hospitals be replaced with nurse-led, minor-injury units.
Peadar McMahon, chairman of the Health Services Action Group and of the Monaghan Community Alliance, told the Dáil committee the Hanly recommendations needed to be re-examined and the public consulted on them.
He said the people of Monaghan were already seeing Hanly's "policy of centralisation" being implemented in their area and had experienced "the disastrous consequences" of this policy.
"Medical, surgical and trauma emergencies were taken by ambulance to other hospitals - Dundalk, Cavan, Drogheda and on occasions to hospitals within the six counties. Since July 2002 there have been at least 12 cases where the patient did not reach the hospital alive or died shortly after arrival. These people could possibly have survived had Monaghan hospital been on call for emergencies," he said.
Monaghan hospital went back on call in January but Mr McMahon said this development would be threatened again from July when surgical services at the hospital are to be reduced. Surgery would be provided by visiting surgeons from Cavan on a 9am to 5pm basis, he said.
Dr John Barton, a consultant physician at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, said his hospital would be reclassified as a "local hospital" under the Hanly reforms and the definition of a local hospital was one that did not provide acute emergency care. A patient who got a heart attack in the area would have to bypass the hospital and go to a major acute hospital miles away, putting their life at risk. While he believed there were positive aspects to Hanly, he believed this element of it was "fundamentally flawed".