Hundreds spell out message on Portiuncula at public meeting

Between 400 and 500 people attended a public meeting in Ballinasloe last weekend called by the Portiuncula Hospital Action Committee at which Galway East candidates in Friday’s general election were grilled on their commitment to securing future services at the hospital.

During a robust questioning session the candidates undertook to resign party whips and vote against a new Government if the hospital came under any threat.

Padraig Mulligan, Chairman of the Action Committee, afterwards expressed delight at the commitment given by the candidates standing in Galway East, as well as by Fine Gael’s Denis Naughten and Sinn Féin candidate Martin Kenny from the neighbouring Roscommon constituency.

All Galway East general election candidates, with the exception of Labour’s Lorraine Higgins, attended Friday night’s public meeting in the Shearwater Hotel where there was strong support for the retention of services at the hospital voiced on behalf of organisations such as the local Chamber of Commerce, the IFA and many sporting and voluntary organisations who once again turned out in an impressive show of solidarity.

Mr Mulligan said that the turnout was an indication that the community was not willing to allow the hospital to be downgraded and services taken away which it provided for the most vulnerable and needy of their community.

Neither were the community going to allow politicians to walk away with “lotto pensions” while the HSE came knocking at the door of the hospital’s general manager looking for cuts in services and jobs, or force their sick and elderly to commute past an existing centre of excellence in Ballinasloe and drive to Galway because the services and jobs had been re-located there.

Pointing out that Portiuncula Hospital had lost 22% of its budget in a series of cuts totalling €12 million since 2008, Mr. Mulligan said that a total of 28 nursing positions as well as posts in pharmacy, and physiotherapy, remained unfilled in the hospital, resulting in vital specialist nurses having to be moved to provide cover all over the hospital, as well as an unacceptable burden on those left to dispense medicine throughout the hospital, and a two year waiting list for physiotherapy.

He forecast that the first challenge of the new ‘super manager’ in charge of University Hospital Galway, as well as Portiuncula and Roscommon County Hospital, would be to implement new HSE cuts and address the current deficit at the Galway hospital.

“The result of this on our hospital will be to seriously curtail resources and services provided in Ballinasloe with a significant amount of services moved to Galway where they are already struggling to cope with service demands,” added Mr Mulligan.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.