HOSPITAL CAMPAIGNERS in Roscommon claim they were informed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday that the opening hours of the AE unit at Roscommon County Hospital are to be reduced.
They say the chief executive of the HSE, Prof Brendan Drumm, confirmed the planned change to local public representatives when he travelled to the west yesterday.
The mayor of Roscommon, Cllr Michael McGreal, said he met Prof Drumm, who "quite emphatically said the AE would close from 8pm to 8am on weekdays and from 8pm on Friday evenings until 8am on Monday mornings".
Although the HSE said later that the meeting was about the moving of acute surgery from Roscommon hospital to Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Cllr McGreal said there was nothing wrong with his hearing, and he knew what he had heard in relation to the planned changes in AE services. But the HSE spokeswoman insisted: "The HSE has made no detailed recommendations on AE changes at Roscommon".
Prof Drumm was in Galway primarily to meet hospital consultants from Roscommon, Ballinasloe and Galway in relation to the HSE's plans to transfer acute inpatient surgery from Roscommon hospital to Portiuncula.
This plan has met with some opposition from doctors, but also from the local Fianna Fáil Minister of State Michael Finneran.
While the meeting was taking place at a hospital in Galway city, protesters from Roscommon gathered outside with placards.
Una Quinn of the Roscommon Hospital Action Group, who was among the protesters, said Prof Drumm did not say precisely when the new AE arrangement would begin.
"But there is a feeling it will be before the end of the year," she said.
Prof Drumm, she said, argued there was not sufficient work coming through Roscommon AE at night to merit keeping it open around the clock.
He said the changes were being put in place to deliver better-quality care, she claimed.
Ms Quinn said the local hospital action group was "devastated" at the news.
"And we had a commitment from Michael Finneran in May 2007, prior to the election, that there would be no downgrading of services," she said.
In April, the HSE, when it announced plans to change surgery arrangements between Roscommon and Portiuncula, said Roscommon hospital would continue to operate a 24/7 emergency department, and it even said it would get the assistance of an extra AE consultant.