Terminally ill patients at South West Acute Hospital are to be left without specialist palliative care nursing support over Easter as the Western Health and Social Care Trust do not provide cover at weekends and public holidays.

At a time when specialist palliative care support is most needed by both the terminally ill patient and their family in hospital, it will be Wednesday morning before the Macmillan Palliative Care Nurse returns for duty after the break.

“It will surprise many to realise that it is only available in the wards at South West Acute Hospital on weekdays and not at weekends or at public holidays,” said a source.

There is no hospice in Fermanagh; the closest is in Belfast, Londonderry or Newry. There is a Specialist Cancer Ward in the Altnagelvin and a Palliative Care Ward in Omagh.

“Nursing staff on the wards accept that they no longer have the expertise and training that these specialist Macmillan nurses have.

“Indeed the Macmillan nurses provide training in palliative care to the nursing staff. Patients have found that Doctors are unable to replicate this palliative care support such as pain relief and have to wait until Monday when the Palliative Care Nurse starts their rounds on the ward,” said the source.

He explained that in many cases palliative care nurses are having to write up a plan with the patient on the Friday, before they leave, which they feel will cover every eventuality until Monday morning when they return, but unfortunately the condition of the terminally ill patient can change suddenly.

“This results in holiday times such as Easter and Christmas when patients can be without any specialist palliative care support for up to five days.

“The health of terminally ill patient can change dramatically and travelling the journey to Omagh (Palliative Care Ward) or the nearest hospice is not always possible,” he said.

The source praised the medical care of doctors and nurses on the wards at SWAH describing them as “exceptional” but adding that they “cannot replicate the specialist palliative care support offered by highly trained Macmillan Nurses and would be the first to admit so.”

One relative of someone who was diagnosed with cancer has told this newspaper how the doctor was unable to increase levels of pain relief in the syringe driver for the patient on a Sunday “as they admitted that their palliative care experience was limited and the patient would have to wait until Monday morning until the Macmillan palliative care nurse returned to work.”

In an e-mail to Democratic Unionist MLA Arlene Foster, Dr. Anne Kilgallen, the chief executive of the Western Trust, confirmed that four palliative care nursing services operate in the Fermanagh and Omagh areas that cover the 24 hour time frame daily.

“However, the Trust does not currently provide a specialist palliative care service in SWAH at weekends or public holidays. The Clinical Nurse Specialists in Palliative Care have an excellent Link Nurse System in place whereby registered nurses on each ward are trained to a high standard and are able to advise and support their colleagues when the specialist service is not available,” she said.

The services that the Trust provide are:

* Clinical Nurse Specialists in Palliative Care

- The Western Health and Social Care Trust has three Specialist Nurses working between SWAH and the Omagh Hospital and Primary Care Complex, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm daily. These staff, alongside the two consultants in Palliative Care Medicine support the Nurses and Doctors on the wards with regard to palliative care patient requirements.

- The Northern Ireland Hospice provides a Specialist Nursing Palliative Care Service to patients living in the community, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm daily.

* Registered Nurses providing Palliative Care

- The Trust’s District Nursing and Rapid Response Nursing Services provide palliative care nursing to patients within all community settings. These services work from 8am to 12midnight.

- A Marie Curie Rapid Response Service which works 10pm to 8am daily and 24 hours at weekends and public holidays. These staff are based and work alongside the GP Out of Hours – SWAH, caring and advising on palliative care and end of life care.

Dr. Kilgallen claims the Specialist Palliative Care Services across the Trust have “developed significantly in the past three to four years with the increase in Consultants and Specialist Nurses and our more recent very innovative Allied Health Professional team (Occupational Therapist, Dietician, Physiotherapist, and Speech & Language Therapist) and Social Worker, who are all based in the Omagh Hospital provide a Trust wide service.”