The Causeway Hospital, Coleraine

Part of Adjournment – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 4:15 pm on 29 May 2012.

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Photo of Cathal Ó hOisín Cathal Ó hOisín Sinn Féin 4:15, 29 May 2012

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I welcome the Member’s bringing this debate forward. I hope that the Minister will provide some clarity so that the debate is not self-defeating. There is, I believe, a serious lack of confidence among the staff and nurses at the Causeway, which has sometimes been contributed to by the attitude of the trust in dealing with this. Like others, we, too, met on many occasions the trust and Mr Donaghy, and in the case of the Causeway we really should have been doing it all together and singing off the one hymn sheet.

Mr Campbell referred to the population issue. Of course, that is the issue we looked at. We have figures of some 458,000 being alluded to within the trust area with additional visitor numbers of upwards on half a million over the three- to four-month summer period. That is already well through the upper threshold and glass ceiling of the provision of two acute hospitals.

We all know the historical reasons why the Antrim Area Hospital went where it did. If it was being done today, of course, it would not have gone there but perhaps somewhere more central. But that is history and we now have to look at how best to deal with what we have. The Causeway Hospital deals with not only the boroughs and council districts of Coleraine, Ballymoney, Moyle, Larne, Ballymena, Antrim and Magherafelt but areas such as the other half of my constituency in the Limavady borough, where people will attend the Causeway.

Admittedly, we have a reasonably good road from the likes of Dungiven to Derry, and people will go on the relatively minor mountain road to the Causeway because of the time factor but also because of the treatment factor. So, it is the hospital of choice for many people in the Limavady Borough Council area. A neighbour of mine’s wee lassie got a fractured wrist at a camogie game the other evening and they had her down at the Causeway and were in and out within an hour, which in itself stands as a testament because elsewhere that could be increased manyfold.

There are quite a number of Members wishing to speak but I think we will be saying virtually the same thing: that we believe that there should be no diminution in the provision of service at the Causeway Hospital, particularly in relation to the A&E and surgery cases. What is needed, perhaps, is a proactive pushing of the Causeway, and there seems not to have been that. Some sort of skewed weighting seems to have been applied to the Antrim Area Hospital, and that has resulted in a differential between the two hospitals which goes into the pay structures and recruitment. That has left very much a feeling of inequality at the Causeway.

Five of the area’s six MLAs met the consultants and local GPs at an emergency meeting last night. They reinforced yet again the uncertainty that exists.