Soccer star hits out at hospitals break-up

International soccer star John O’Shea has backed a campaign to stop the predicted break-up of the hospital network in the south-east which serves half a million people.

The Sunderland and Ireland defender yesterday released a video on the South East Hospital Action Alliance’s website urging members of the public to sign a petition against any dismantling of the regional network.

A report is due to be presented to the Government this week, written by an expert group chaired by Professor John Higgins of UCC, which is believed to recommend severing the governance and medical structures which currently link acute hospitals across the region.

However, consultants, politicians, and the public have mounted a sustained campaign in recent months calling for the network to be retained.

They fear that coupling Waterford Regional Hospital and South Tipperary General Hospital with Cork University Hospital, along with partnering Wexford General Hospital and St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny with teaching hospitals in Dublin, will lead to a loss of key services from the region.

Now John O’Shea, who is from Ferrybank on the edge of Waterford City, has lent his voice to the campaign.

“If our network of hospitals is disbanded it will affect the half a million-strong population of Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford, Tipperary, and Carlow,” he said.

“Sick people will be forced to travel to Cork and Dublin for services like cardiology cancer care and other specialist services.”

He called on citizens to sign a petition to this effect at sehaa.ie or “like” the group’s Facebook page. “You have a voice, so use it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the consultants’ group at Waterford Regional has produced a shared services report for the Department of Health in which it proposes a single governance structure for the entire south-east hospitals network.

Health Minister James Reilly is believed to be bringing the Higgins report and its recommendations to Cabinet before the end of this month.