Lobby group sceptical about reorganisation

A lobby group which brought thousands of protesters onto the streets last winter to object to any downgrade of hospitals in the South-East reacted with scepticism to yesterday’s announcements on hospital groupings.

James Reilly, the health minister, wrote to TDs in Waterford to assure them that services such as invasive cardiology, trauma, and oncology would remain at Waterford Regional Hospital, which is to be linked with Cork University Hospital and, according to Fine Gael, will become a “major teaching hospital” because of new academic posts.

It will be renamed Waterford University Teaching Hospital.

The hospital is also due to gain some new and replacement consultant posts in areas such as emergency medicine, dermatology, and acute medicine. Dr Reilly told TDs the hospital would have a “vibrant future” and play a “key role” in the new South/South-West group, which will also include South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel.

Meanwhile, St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny and Wexford General Hospital are to be linked with St James’s Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital, respectively, in Dublin.

Clinical director at WRH, Dr Rob Landers, said he was “very supportive” of the hospital move, saying it secured the future of both WRH and South Tipperary General.

“I’m very happy with the reassurances from the minister. They’re very explicit in terms of the services that are staying in Waterford and the wider South-East.”

The next step, he said, is the establishment of a governing structure which will ensure Waterford and South Tipperary have their say in the years to come.

However, the government statements have not placated the Save Waterford group, which organised a number of protest events since November.

“I still have major concerns, to be honest,” co-founder Andrea Galgey said yesterday. “Not happy at all. There’s some good things in it, like the retention of cancer control and other essential services, but we just think they’re trying to fob us off with a name change to try to appease us because of the protests, but it’s not enough. We don’t want to be a byproduct of Cork hospital, we want to be an independent hospital.”