DETAILS OF pre-election promises by a number of Government TDs in relation to local hospital services emerged yesterday as Roscommon’s emergency department was replaced with an “urgent care centre”.
Following sustained attack from Opposition parties on Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the weekend over his attempt to distance himself from a general election pledge to retain the emergency department at Roscommon County Hospital, new comments by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore also emerged.
“The Labour Party policy will be to retain Roscommon hospital and to retain all of the services,” Mr Gilmore told Shannonside FM in September 2010. “The Labour Party believes in the importance of the local hospital. Keeping hospital services close to where people are,” he said. Specifically asked on Shannonside FM if 24-hour Accident Emergency services would be retained, he replied: “That is the Labour Party policy”.
On Sunday night Mr Kenny issued a statement expressing regret over “any confusion” arising from his response to a weekend query regarding general election commitments on Roscommon hospital. Speaking to an RTÉ reporter on Saturday, he was asked if he had “made any personal promises” on the hospital during the election. “I was at pains around the country to say, on more than one radio station, that I wasn’t travelling the country making promises that I couldn’t stand over,” he replied. However, a recording later emerged of Mr Kenny telling a Fine Gael rally in Roscommon in February: “We are committed to maintaining the services in Roscommon County Hospital”.
Dr James Reilly, who has since been appointed Minister for Health, specifically mentioned Roscommon hospital in a motion he tabled in October last year in which he called on the Government to “suspend the loss of front-line health services and capacity at hospitals, for example, at Clonmel, Merlin Park, Nenagh, Roscommon, Navan, Sligo, Letterkenny, Portiuncula, Wexford, Monaghan, Ennis and Louth county”.
He reiterated his stance in an Irish Timesinterview in February, weeks before the general election.
When asked if he would continue with HSE plans to reconfigure hospital services that would see the withdrawal of some acute services from local hospitals, Dr Reilly said: “No. The service needs a full review so that the guiding principle of treating patients at the lowest level of complexity in a timely, safe and efficient fashion and as near to home as possible is adhered to”.
In the same article, Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan, now Minister of State for Trade and Development, made a similar promise: “We will stop the process of reconfiguration for complete review because at present services are being taken away from smaller hospitals and patients are being forced into centralised services that haven’t been given the resources to look after them. This cannot and will not continue,” she replied.
At a recorded event held in Sligo on February 16th, now Minister of State for Small Business John Perry said he would resign from Fine Gael if commitments in relation to cancer services at Sligo were not honoured.
“Dr Reilly will be the next minister for health. Enda Kenny will be the next taoiseach. Having spoken to both of them . . . it was stated quite categorically in Government, there is no ambiguity whatever about this, none whatever, the services . . . that were removed from Sligo General Hospital will be returned.”
Mr Perry later acknowledged it was wrong to promise that breast cancer services would resume at Sligo General Hospital within 100 days of the Government taking office.
At the same February event, party colleague Tony McLoughlin said he also had received a pledge from Dr Reilly on the reinstatement of services in Sligo: “This man has given a commitment and I honestly believe that we are a party of credibility and we will certainly honour the commitment that we have given.”