I’m back home from a “Save Nenagh Hospital” rally earlier on today – I estimated the number of people there to be at least two thousand.
As you might infer, this is quite serious – the Health Service Executive in Ireland have already made the first steps in downgrading and then closing the General Hospital in Nenagh. Already there are plans for numerous cuts, including a proposal to remove 24-hour accident and emergency services at the hospital in favour of the introduction of advance paramedics to partly replace the present service.
The only numbers important to the HSE, it seems, are those balanced on their accounts sheets – not the number of lives that will be lost, the number of minutes late that ambulances will arrive to road accidents, the ill and those in need.
Representatives of the HSE were invited to attend but did not – most likely because they know no matter how they try they can not make sense of their own arguments. In short, they can not justify what they are proposing.
Google for phrases such as “save nenagh hospital” and “friends of nenagh hospital” to see just how serious and important this is – you’ll find links such as this article in the Irish Times (Doctors to fight cuts at Nenagh hospital).
Please add your voice by joining the Save Nenagh Hospital group on facebook, by writing to your political representatives and by writing to the papers.
Don’t let Nenagh become the next Monaghan.
