CLOSURE OF BREAST CANCER UNIT UNACCEPTABLE

“There can be no excuse, no justification, for the decision to close the breast care unit in Sligo General Hospital.” Cllr Declan Bree told this weeks meeting of Sligo Borough Council

“The unit here operates to the highest standards and is serviced by experienced and highly qualified and highly respected staff that are second to none in this country.” he said.

“And it must also be pointed out that we are a gateway city providing a quality public medical service to the people of this region. And it must also be pointed out that the people of this community intend to ensure that this quality public health service is maintained, despite the Governments proposals to close it down.

“Minister Harney and the Government clearly have an agenda to undermine and subvert the role of our public hospitals and to undermine and subvert the role of our public health service.

“In the period since Mary Harney agreed to take up the health portfolio, she and the Government have set about implementing an agenda that favours private medicine at the expense of our public hospitals and that has created crisis after crisis in our public health service.

“When the Government created the HSE it clearly and deliberately created a vehicle to implement Government policy, a vehicle that is run by faceless bureaucrats drawn from all parts of the country, who appear to be answerable to no one but the Minister for Health.

“When the regional health boards existed details of budgeting and proposed changes in services were brought before the members of the Health Board and considered and voted on.

“This was an open and transparent system where elected representatives and representatives of medical staff and nursing staff and others had the opportunity of debating important matters with senior management, and of voting on plans that would affect the future of medical services in the region - and of course this was all covered by and published in the local media.

“However in the period since the Government abolished the Health Boards, openness, transparency and public accountability have become a thing of the past.

“The Governments decision to hand over day to day control of the health services to the HSE was quite deliberate and the Government cannot now be allowed to perform a Pontius Pilate act. The HSE is implementing Government policy. It is an instrument of Government.

“The Government and Minister Harney are responsible for creating the present crisis in the health services and they must now be forced to move to resolve it. They must now be forced to immediately reverse the outrageous decision to shut down the Breast Care Service in Sligo General Hospital.” Cllr Bree said.