The plan to withdraw around the clock emergency services from Roscommon County Hospital will not be reversed, Minister for Health Dr James Reilly stressed today.
Speaking after attending an event at Trinity College Dublin, he said he wanted to send a loud message to the people of Roscommon.
"I won't stand over an unsafe service and that's what's there at the moment even if we had all the NCHDs (non consultant hospital doctors or junior doctors) in the world," he said.
He added that even if there were endless resources to put more doctors and specialists into the hospital they would become deskilled within a matter of years because of the low volume of patients attending the hospital.
About 13,000 patients a year attend the hospital's emergency department.
It was also "utterly irresponsible" for anyone to suggest that the mere appointment of a full time A&E consultant would make the Roscommon service safe, Dr Reilly added. "It's nonsense," he said.
"We have to deal the crushing reality that faces us. I don't like to disappoint people. I don't want to see people protesting. I don't want to see people upset. But I will be honest. I will be straight," he added.
He said the current service will be replaced with an urgent care centre staffed by hospital doctors from 8am to 8pm. Outside these hours GPs, with access to diagnostics, will see patients attending the hospital.
Speaking in Co Limerick today, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the situation facing a number of hospitals across the country was very challenging.
"I think we've got to deal with reality here. I can't stand over a situation where clinical evidence of health matters in some hospital which are deemed to be unsafe can continue," he said, adding that there are exceptional people working in the health care system who have been "strangled" by a system that has "gotten out of hand" over the years.
“We can’t afford not to have the best standard available for everybody and what the Minister is trying to do is to provide an urgent care facility in Roscommon hospital, " he said.
Dr Pat McHugh, a former consultant at the hospital, told a packed public meeting in Roscommon last night that people would die on the road between Roscommon and Galway if the local emergency department is downgraded. He claimed the Government was now offering the local people a nursing home and an ambulance in place of a hospital.