Vote with your feet to save hospital

Dear sir - As we are all aware, Navan and the entire community of Meath and beyond is gripped with fear for the future of our Lady’s Hospital, Navan . These fears are well founded as the HSE runs our of money and needs to make cuts. The voluntary community is organising a day to allow people show support for the hospital on 30th October, and this is an open invitation for all to attend. What we are afraid of is the loss of 2,300 jobs directly employed in the hospital and the blank future for all of the rest of our community whose livelihoods depends on supplying this facility; the loss of a covering hospital for all those who work in Tara Mines and the entire county, causing a real health and safety issue for us all; the loss of hospital beds anywhere in the north east now make our health service less accessible for all of us, as our health service is already stretched to breaking point with hospital trolleys fast becoming the norm instead of beds; the loss of the regional hospital for Navan. Local patients are being transported by ambulance across the north east, through Meath, Cavan and Dublin in search of a hospital bed. This practice will continue until it also becomes the norm when our hospital closes. This closure is now on the cards unless we all using public pressure stops it. Minister Harney admitted that the changes to Navan Hospital were made because of financial concerns, not medical ones, so people need to continue to use this facility or it will be closed by stealth. Now I am not blessed with either medical or the inside knowledge of the problems of the hospital, but informed medical sources inside the hospital tell me that while it is probably the right decision to remove trauma cases from Our Lady’s, because of the subsequent lack of work, the anaesthetist will be the next to be removed by the HSE. If there is no anaesthetist present, all practical use of the facility as a hospital is removed. When this facility is gone it will be gone with no return possible, so it is now the responsibility of everybody to keep it opened. Please do not blame others if it closes - the blame game will not reopen it. Saturday 30th October is one of the rare chances left that we as a community can show or support for this facility, at 3.30 pm at the Enterprise Centre, Trim Road. Please do not leave it to others to do your duty for your community, your neighbours and your friends because some day soon you or them will need the hospital, but unless we all vote with our feet now it will not be there. Yours, Paddy Pryle, Navan.