The Department of Health will tomorrow, Tuesday, launch a consultation into the reshaping of stroke care in Northern Ireland. The consultation, sources have told this paper, will include a number of options to close or downgrade the hyper acute stroke services that are currently in place in South West Acute Hospital.

One Fermanagh woman has spoken in stark terms about the ramifications of any downgrading claiming that lives will be lost.

Ciara Murray, who had a stroke in 2015 when she was 37 weeks pregnant, is a member of local lobby group Save Our Stroke Services.

“People are alive today because of the stroke services at South West Acute Hospital, there is no doubt about that,” she explained.

 “It’s just disgusting, the very thought of losing any of the service,” said Mrs. Murray.

“It is just so important here to everyone. It saves lives. You cannot really put it any clearer than that,” she stated.

A closure to stroke services at SWAH would see patients in Fermanagh having to travel to Altnagelvin to avail of the care required.

Mrs. Murrary lay undiscovered until her husband John returned from work. She underwent a caesarean section, had a blood clot removed from her brain and was placed in an induced coma to give her body time to heal.

“If people have to travel up the road then lives will be lost,” she said.

“It is that simple. You are not going to live, you are going to be dead. The golden hour is so important. Stroke survivors in Fermanagh and Tyrone are here today because they got care quickly. If that care is not at SWAH people will die,” said Mrs. Murray.

In 2017 the Health and Social Care Board  (HSCB) produced a pre-consultation document called “Reshaping Stroke Services”. Meetings were held across Northern Ireland at the time with 600 people arriving at a meeting held at the Killyhevlin Hotel in September 2017. Later that month the pre-consultation ended.

At the time within Fermanagh there was universal opposition to any possible downgrading or closure of stroke services at SWAH with politicians from all parties lending their weight to local lobby groups campaigning to save stroke services.

In a letter to the HSCB Fermanagh and Omagh District Council stated that it “totally opposes any potential diminution of the services provided in the South West Acute Hospital which will further exacerbate health inequalities, particularly for the most disadvantaged people in the council district”.

The most recent update regarding the future of stroke services appeared on the HSCB in May of last year.

It stated that advice had been sought from local consultants, stroke survivors and stroke charities while discussions were also held with senior management of Health and Social Care Trusts to ensure any future proposals could be delivered.

The statement read: “By considering all of this information and the very latest research available to us, we are currently developing some potential proposals for the delivery of hospital and community stroke services. A report is currently be (sic) finalised for further consideration by the Department of Health and wider HSC. It is hoped that a consultation process will commence later this year.”

That was ten months ago and the consultation process that had hoped to commence in 2018 is now being launched tomorrow, Tuesday.