DUP MLA rejects Alliance claims that Causeway Hospital surgery concerns amount to “disinformation”

Mr Bradley was speaking ahead of a meeting of Causeway Coast and Glens Council on September 1 during which a motion, tabled by DUP councillors Darryl Wilson and Tanya Elder, will call on the Health Minister to ‘overturn’ a Northern Health Trust recommendation to remove EGS from Causeway Hospital.

Ahead of that meeting, two Causeway Coast and Glens Alliance representatives said that people on the north coast deserve ‘better than disinformation’ on the future of Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital.

Cllr Lee Kane said: “Health experts are telling us that the consolidation of emergency general surgery in Antrim Area Hospital is in the best interest of patients.

"That clinical expertise should be the basis of our decision-making. Not disinformation from political representatives who are prioritising likes on social media over the safety of our constituents,” he continued.

Alderman Yvonne Boyle, challenged claims that Causeway Hospital is being run down, saying: “This motion peddles myths about the future of Causeway Hospital that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.”

However, East Londonderry MLA Maurice Bradley countered saying: “Councillor Kane and Alderman Boyle are entitled to support the Northern Trust’s proposal, but they are not entitled to dismiss legitimate questions about patient safety, capacity, rural access and staffing as disinformation.

“My interest in Causeway Hospital did not begin with this consultation or with social media. I have been raising concerns about the hospital and challenging successive Northern Trust administrations since the days of Sean Donaghy, through Tony Stevens, Jennifer Welsh and now Suzanne Pullins.

“I have consistently sought answers through meetings, Assembly questions, correspondence with the Trust and representations to successive Health Ministers. Attempting to portray that record as a recent attempt to attract social-media attention is both inaccurate and insulting.”

Mr Bradley said the strongest rebuttal to the Alliance statement was contained in the Northern Trust’s own consultation report.

“The Trust received 1,415 responses. When respondents were asked whether they agreed with the preferred option of centralising Emergency General Surgery and major colorectal surgery at Antrim, just 21 said yes, while 1,362 said no.

“The Trust itself acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of respondents did not support its proposal.

“It is therefore extraordinary for Alliance representatives to accuse elected representatives of spreading disinformation while ignoring the clearly expressed views of the public.

“Those consultation respondents were not ‘self-appointed experts’. They included patients, healthcare workers, families, rural residents and people with direct experience of receiving emergency surgical care at Causeway.”

The consultation also recorded that only 22 respondents agreed with the outcome of the Rural Needs Impact Assessment, while 1,323 disagreed.

Mr Bradley welcomed investment in Causeway but said it could not be used to obscure the loss of a core acute service.

“I welcome the new MRI scanner, the £1.8 million investment in ambulatory care and every consultant, Specialty Doctor and Advanced Nurse Practitioner recruited to Causeway. I have consistently supported and sought investment in the hospital.

“However, purchasing an MRI scanner does not answer whether removing inpatient Emergency General Surgery is safe. Nor does investment in ambulatory or elective care replace the ability to admit and operate on an emergency surgical patient at Causeway.

“The Trust’s own documents state that patients requiring urgent surgical intervention or admission to a surgical inpatient bed will be transferred to Antrim. That is not a myth; it is the proposed model.”

The Trust estimates that two or three patients each day will require transfer from Causeway to Antrim, with approximately one-third requiring a Northern Ireland Ambulance Service paramedic crew, he added.

Mr Bradley continued: “The Trust has explicitly acknowledged the existing pressures at Antrim Area Hospital. More importantly, its consultation report states that its proposed measures will not resolve Antrim’s underlying capacity problems.

“That is why I have repeatedly asked for the detailed bed, theatre, workforce, ambulance and financial modelling underpinning this decision.

“Before services are removed from Causeway, the public deserves to know precisely where these patients will be accommodated, how quickly an appropriate ambulance will be available, what happens when Antrim is operating beyond capacity, and what contingency exists when an unstable patient cannot safely withstand the journey.

“Assurances are not a substitute for published and independently tested evidence.”

Mr Bradley said recruitment information supplied by the Trust also raised legitimate questions.

“Figures supplied to me covering April 2023 to July 2026 recorded 2,194 vacancy notifications associated with Antrim, compared with 708 at Causeway. Within the medical, dental and senior executive categories, the figures were 190 and 71 respectively.

“Those figures cannot, by themselves, prove underinvestment or establish why each vacancy arose. That is precisely why I have asked the Trust for establishment levels, vacancy rates, unsuccessful recruitment exercises, turnover figures and the reasons posts were advertised.

“What they certainly do not justify is Alliance declaring it ‘categorically untrue’ that removing acute services could affect future recruitment and retention.

“Indeed, the Trust’s consultation report records concerns that removing Emergency General Surgery could make Causeway less attractive to doctors and nurses. That concern deserves a proper evidence-based answer, not a political dismissal.”

Mr Bradley said the Trust’s own report recorded significant concerns about distance, ambulance availability and rural inequality.

“The report acknowledges that Causeway is almost 40 miles from Antrim and records concerns that the journey from Coleraine can take more than an hour.

“It also identifies 83,642 residents in settlements more than 30 minutes from Antrim, while a further 155,813 people live in hamlets or open countryside and were not included in that percentage calculation.

“These are real people – not statistics to be brushed aside. Older residents, farming families, people without private transport and communities across the north coast and Glens deserve the same consideration as those living closer to Greater Belfast.”

Mr Bradley added: “I respect clinical opinion and have never suggested that services should remain unchanged regardless of patient safety. However, invoking unnamed ‘health experts’ does not end legitimate democratic scrutiny.

“If senior clinicians have concluded that only the Antrim option is safe, the full evidence supporting that conclusion should be published. That must include the underlying workforce assumptions, capacity modelling, transfer-risk assessment, dissenting clinical opinions and a properly costed comparison with retaining and strengthening Emergency General Surgery at Causeway.

“The Trust’s original options appraisal included centralising Emergency General Surgery and major colorectal surgery at Causeway. The public is entitled to see why investment in Causeway was rejected while the existing absence of a funded 24/7 emergency theatre there was subsequently used as a reason to favour Antrim.

“The absence of previous investment must not be turned into the justification for further removing services.”

Mr Bradley concluded: “This debate should be conducted respectfully and on the evidence. Branding local representatives and concerned residents as peddlers of disinformation does nothing to answer the serious questions before us.

“I will continue to support genuine health transformation, but transformation must be demonstrably safe, properly funded and fair to rural communities.

“Until the workforce, capacity, transfer and financial evidence has been fully published and independently scrutinised, I will continue to call on the Health Minister to pause this proposal and examine a properly resourced Causeway alternative.

“The people of the Causeway Coast do deserve better. They deserve answers.”