Farming group 'implores Health Minister to save lives' by keeping emergency surgery at Causeway Hospital

Farmers For Action were responding to the news on May 22 that the Board of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust had approved a recommendation on the future delivery of emergency general surgery at Antrim Hospital and elective surgery at Causeway Hospital, Coleraine.

The Board’s recommendation requires the approval of the Health Minister and Department of Health before it can be implemented.

Now the Farmers For Action Steering Committee say they have unanimously agreed that Health Minister Nesbitt “must not sign off on the removal of Emergency General Surgery at Causeway Hospital".

FFA NI Co-ordinator William Taylor said: “The Trust completely ignored the Rural Needs Act by not doing a proper Rural Needs Assessment; their actions completely ignore the NI Climate Change Act; they did not release the results of the public consultation before the meeting.”

He claimed that the Board “all voted in favour of the Trust and ignored every consultation submitted”, adding that a ‘collapse of services’ was mentioned despite the fact that “every year for decades the NHS has received an increased budget of at least inflation plus”.

Mr Taylor added: “The North Coast is a huge farming area and this industry has catalogued many lives saved due to farm accidents and the availability of acute emergency surgery at Causeway.

"We implore you Minister to save lives going forward by retaining services at Causeway Hospital!”