That was the clear message that was sent out at the pre-consultation meeting at the Killyhevlin on Monday night.

The passion in the community on the night was obvious to see even before the meeting was underway. I left the house about twenty minutes before the meeting was set to begin at 6.30pm and the journey should only have taken me literally five minutes.

As I approached the hotel, the traffic was already building up. The car parks were full and drivers weren’t realising this until they’d already entered, meaning they were trying to fight their way out as others were still determined to get in. Those of us lucky enough to see this from a distance and coming in on the Belfast side had the luxury of a dropped kerb that could easily be navigated over and a new parking space created on the grassy verge.

Amongst this disarray of drivers, there was an ambulance fighting its way through with the lights and sirens blazing.

Its progress was slow as all tried to get out of its way and the irony of the matter hit me: here we all were attending a meeting about our stroke services when there was a possibility that that ambulance was on its way out to someone suffering with just that.

Once inside, it became clear that more people than expected had turned up to support the local stroke unit.

There were seats laid out for some 400 people but they were quickly filled and the other 200 or so of us ended up lining the walls and spilling out into the foyer.

At one point the main doors had to be closed as the venue had reached capacity and no more attendees could be allowed in for health and safety reasons.

Even in the crowds, the community spirit was obvious with strangers offering cups of iced water around and individuals speaking with their neighbour in response to the various points that were made. All demographics were represented.

There were attendees who had suffered from strokes themselves and those who have cared for them. All the local political parties were represented and dotted themselves around the room. There were people my age there and those who are a couple of generations above. Within that alone it was clear that it isn’t just one section of the community who want to see our stroke services retained: it’s something that is important to us all.

We’ve all had the opportunity to learn about the proposed changes to the overall stroke services in Northern Ireland and it’s no secret that the unit at the South West Acute Hospital is the highest performing unit in Northern Ireland and on a par with the best units across the water.
We are quite rightly proud of the unit and the staff who keep it up to those high standards and that’s why so many people were speaking with passion on Monday night.

The fact that this was a “pre-consultation” event was emphasised several times but that didn’t seem to detract from the very real fears that those in the room had. The strength of feeling against the proposals was obvious from the very start and there were many there who were very well informed. I personally don’t have much knowledge on strokes apart from the basic FAST knowledge because I’m lucky enough that no-one close to me has suffered one but even I can see that ours is a unit that needs to be retained and even the faintest whisper of closing it needs to be silenced at the first opportunity.

I remember being fascinated by a TV programme called “The Golden Hour” when I was younger. It focused on a fictional air ambulance team but referenced a very real aspect of emergency medical care. The golden hour is that hour straight after an incident when everything needs to go perfectly in order to bring about the highest likelihood of preventing death or serious disability.

Whether or not 60 minutes is the exact cut off time isn’t evidenced but it’s obvious that the sooner someone begins treatment, the better their chances. For every minute after a stroke strikes, 1.9 million brain cells are lost and for every half an hour that passes without treatment, the chances of recovery decrease by 10 per cent.

With those statistics, we cannot afford to move our stroke services any further away: those in Rosslea will already have to wait half an hour or more before an ambulance even reaches them.

If we don’t have a stroke unit, our next access point is either Belfast or Altnagelvin so that’s another good two hours added to journey time alone. And let’s be frank: are their services up to the standards that our local unit has set?

In the leaflet that was handed out at the end of the meeting, assurances are made that these proposals aren’t about saving money. Instead they’re about providing the best possible services in Northern Ireland. But instead of focusing on bringing everyone up to Fermanagh’s high standards, some of the seven proposals that the Health and Social Care board have made would potentially drag us down to a lower level.
Instead of wasting time with this faff of a process now, their time and energy would be much better spent attracting permanent, experienced staff to the positions that need them, both within the stroke units and outside them in the community services.

There’s a need to make improvements to all units across Northern Ireland but I’m sure we would all prefer to see eleven small improvements to each current unit rather than the closure of seven and larger improvements at the four. Those four could be state of the art, but if they’re hours away, what use are they really going to be on a Northern Ireland-wide scale? In 2014/2015, an average of ten people a day were admitted to hospitals here with the primary diagnosis of a stroke. Our ambulance service is under enough pressure as it is bringing seriously ill and injured people to their nearest hospital. We don’t need to add to that by turning them into yellow flashing tour buses that spend hours transporting one patient to an unfamiliar place that’s far away from their family. A stroke turns things upside down as it is so how is it right to add any extra disorientation and uncertainty to a patient?

The deadline for responses to this pre-consultation report is 5pm tomorrow (Friday) so it’s vital to get your views recorded ASAP and to really look into the questions that are being asked before answering them. I’m concerned that this consultation is going to go similarly to how the one on medical equipment and continence products did a few years ago. Getting supplies delivered to your door sounded fabulous but respondents didn’t realise that they would be waiting for up to a fortnight for that delivery or that they’d have to proactively order their supplies in advance rather than having a regularly set pick-up date. It was only after the service changed that people realised that things weren’t quite as stellar as they were on paper.

Of course, we’d love stroke units that are fully staffed 24/7 but it’s not fair for Fermanagh to have that at the expense of another area. Geographic location shouldn’t determine how well you could potentially recover after a stroke. That’s something that should be universal. The NHS was designed to look after every single person in the United Kingdom from the cradle to the grave but I just worry that some of these proposals are going to have some taking a step closer to the grave than they need to.