A major campaign by doctors from smaller hospitals against the proposed downgrading of their facilities will open later this month when they hold a mass meeting in Co Kildare.
The meeting on Saturday week is being planned in advance of the expected publication next month of the Hanly report on medical staffing in the health service. Hanly is to be the third and final in a series of reports which will drive the Government's health service reform programme.
It has proposed, as a starting point, a radical reorganisation of hospital services in two health board areas, but if this is used as a blueprint for other areas, maternity units and emergency services at several smaller hospitals will be axed.
Dr Liam Twomey, a Wexford GP and Independent TD, said the meeting would be the first salvo in the battle for recognition of the invaluable role played by small hospitals in places such as Wexford, Nenagh and Roscommon.
"There is a lot of discussion now about small hospitals. We hear they are inefficient and not the way forward, that centres of excellence are the way forward," he said.
"People making these arguments do not take into account the invaluable role of small hospitals in many rural communities. It is time now for us to rebut what they are saying.
"This meeting is our attempt to highlight what we do, to show that these hospitals have a value to the community.
"I think the Department of Finance might be looking for an excuse in Hanly to reduce services further in these hospitals. That is what we are resisting," Dr Twomey said.
The meeting is in the Ambassador Hotel in Kill on September 20th, and speakers will include Dr Christine O'Malley, consultant geriatrician at Nenagh General Hospital; Dr Gary Courtney, consultant physician at St Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny; and Dr John Barton, consultant physician at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe.