FAMILY DOCTORS in Meath have accused the HSE of wanting to downgrade Our Lady's Hospital in Navan and say they are "categorically opposed" to the hospital's emergency services being transferred to the new A&E unit in Drogheda which they claim will not be big enough.
In a strongly-worded statement the Meath faculty of the Irish College of General Practitioners said a lot of effort was being "wasted" by the HSE in "shifting care" from the hospitals in Navan, Monaghan and Dundalk.
They said the HSE was sending patients to "over-stretched hospitals like Cavan and especially Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda, when what is needed is to maintain Navan fully until and unless a new regional hospital opens".
In addition, a member of the HSE forum in the northeast has called for the HSE to "reverse its strategy of herding people into an overcrowded and possibly dangerous Drogheda hospital".
Construction is under way on the new A&E department at Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda. The €11.35 million project will see an expansion of the emergency department with extra clinical facilities on upper floors.
However, the GPs in Meath say they are "categorically opposed to emergency services at Navan being moved to the new emergency department at Drogheda as it is not big enough to cope with the needs of Co Louth, let alone our own referrals".
Meanwhile, a Sinn Féin councillor has said there is a question mark over whether the new regional hospital will ever be built - it is scheduled for 2012.
Meath county councillor Joe Reilly, who is a member of the HSE forum, said: "I was told earlier this month that for the fifth time the HSE cannot announce the location of the hospital because they have not yet received a report from their consultants.
"Given the now more negative economic climate the whole future of a new regional hospital must be in doubt."
The HSE said that "confirmation of the location for the new regional hospital and the establishment of the development board [for it]" is one of 12 projects for 2008/2009 that are "dependent on a range of factors including significant change management, work practice change and freeing up necessary resources".
Also on that list are moving "complex and emergency surgery" from Navan to Drogheda, centralisation of all level three critical care at Drogheda and all level two critical care at Cavan and Drogheda.
The GPs have also hit out at the failure of the HSE to establish any of the 40 primary care teams promised for the region by last month's deadline. They said that "despite this absolute - and we mean complete - failure to build up the strength of medical care outside hospital, the HSE has rushed ahead with the changes to the hospital side of its operations".
Mr Reilly demanded that the HSE "make a decision, after over two years and five cancellations of deadlines, on the location of the new regional hospital and commit to funding/building it".