Save Navan Hospital meeting tonight

A key public meeting in the battle to save Navan Hospital's ED takes place tonight in the Newgrange Hotel.

The chair of the Save Navan Hospital Campaign Peadar Tóibín TD said;

“The future of Navan Hospital A&E hangs in the balance. Our A&E is by far the most important health infrastructure in Meath, a county with a population that’s approaching a quarter of a million people. The lives of thousands of people have been saved and protected in our A&E over the decades.

“It is incomprehensible that the HSE is looking to close our A&E at a time of record A&E overcrowding, record hospital waiting lists and when GPs are leaving Ireland in their hundreds for work abroad. The HSE are working off a plan that’s over a decade old, that is based on demographics that bear no resemblance to today’s reality. They are ignoring their own report, written at great cost that identified Navan has the logical location in the region for an A&E."

He said the HSE has provided no safe alternative pathway for patients to receive emergency treatment.

"The idea that a GP referral Medical Assessment Unit will work is a nonsense. GP appointments are as rare as hens teeth and take up to a fortnight to get. No one in an emergency is going to wait days for a GP referral to an MAU, they will end up adding to shocking waiting times in Drogheda A&E”.

“We are in the middle of an enormous battle that will determine the future health outcomes of generations of people in Meath. We are determined not to allow the region become another University Hospital Limerick. We urge everyone with a stake hold in this county to attend the Public Meeting in the Newgrange Hotel tonight at 8pm.