John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Mullen, who has graciously shared his time. I am not an instinctive "save our hospital" type. I understand that, sometimes, hospitals need to be closed and units rationalised. Nor am I anti-Roscommon. It is a matter of public record that I was staunch in my defence of an unfair closure of the emergency services in Roscommon in the face of data that were shown to be clearly inaccurate. Those services should never have been retracted by the Government. It was a great shame.

I also used to work in Ballinasloe hospital where I saw many patients from St. Brigid's Hospital who had developed acute medical problems and were transferred between those two fine institutions. They had suffered heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia and so on, the usual issues that an often elderly population, although sometimes including young people, encounter. They suffered these problems at night time, on weekends and during the day. For the life of me, I cannot understand how Roscommon hospital is not considered an appropriate place for the management of these medical emergencies 24 hours per day, seven days per week, yet it is so considered when the patients are transferred from an adjacent psychiatric unit.

I have studied the methodology used in the questionnaire. I have published quite a few papers and have a nodding acquaintance with statistics. The methodology was unbelievably subjective. I could see no logic to it whatsoever. I hate to say it, but there must be a whiff of politics about this. Before the last election, the current Taoiseach and Minister for Health, then Opposition politicians, personally wrote and assured everyone in Roscommon that the unit's status would not be changed. They had to make an about-face on that assurance in the face of data that we now know were inaccurate. There is a desperate need to be seen to be doing something for Roscommon. I am unsure as to whether this is not an example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. An error is being made and the methodology needs to be re-examined. I urge the Minister of State and the other officials to study the way the assessment of these units was conducted.