SoS Causeway Hospital campaigners invited to meet Health Minister
A campaign group, which is opposed to plans to remove Emergency General Surgery services from Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital, has been invited to meet the Minister for Health.
SOS Causeway Hospital’s chair, Gemma Brolly, said the invitation was “an unprecedented development in our dealings with the department”.
UUP Lagan Valley MLA Mr Butler stepped into the position of Health Minister following the resignation of Mike Nesbitt over a row with his UUP leader, Jon Burrows.
Speaking during a public meeting organised by SoS Causeway Hospital and public service union UNISON earlier this month in Coleraine, Mr Burrows said: “The recommendation of the Trust to close the emergency surgery in Causeway Hospital does not have my support. I do not agree with it and I will never agree with it. I can’t be any clearer than that.”
Mr Nesbitt then resigned saying: “I am not the sort of Minister who is happy to discover the Leader's view of issues under my purview by having to monitor the media.”
Taking over the role of Minister, Robbie Butler said he was “ready to get to work”, acknowledging the enormous responsibility of the role.
Ms Brolly said of the meeting with Mr Butler: “This is an encouraging start and we are hopeful that this Minister will genuinely engage, listen and address the profound risks facing our local services."
She added: “We are also increasingly convinced that had SOS Causeway Hospital and UNISON not held a recent public meeting, this proposal would have been given the go-ahead quietly and without full scrutiny of the evidence.
"We appreciate the staffing concerns but in the face of the pattern to simply strip services from Causeway Hospital, we will continue to highlight the fact there is a provision of staff just 14 miles up the road in Belfast. The current plan puts both Causeway and Antrim hospitals at risk.”