There was anger, tension and tears at a public meeting on the future of stroke services in Northern Ireland held in the Killyhevlin on Wednesday night.

The meeting was organised by the Department of Health as part of their engagement programme to gain feedback on their consultation into the future of stroke services.

The consultation includes six options with four of the options resulting in the closure of the stroke unit at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH).

In attendance were stroke survivors, family members of people who have died as a result of stroke, local politicians as well as general members of the public.

There was widespread anger among the crowd at the possibility of the closure of the stroke unit and Department of Health officials in attendance would have been under no illusions as to the depth of feeling there is within the community as to the importance of the stroke unit at SWAH.

Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer of the Belfast Trust, and Brid Farrell of the Public Health Authority were among those in attendance and sitting at the top table.

Speaker after speaker from the floor spoke about the fact that the stroke unit at SWAH was the best performing in Northern Ireland and one of the best performing in the UK with one speaker telling the top table that “it made no sense to close the best unit in Northern Ireland,” he went on to invoke an old TV commercial for fertiliser where a son asks his father about how he knows a particular brand was the best on the market by saying of the SWAH stroke Unit, “Results son, it’s about results”.

DUP leader, Arlene Foster was in attendance, and she warned that the people of Fermanagh would not be “victims” at the cost of making Altnaglevin sustainable.

Indeed, that was a regular theme across the night with people questioning if the proposed closure of SWAH’s stroke services in four of the six models was in fact a way of sustaining Altnagelvin.

Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer of the Belfast Trust, said that the consultation was not pre-determined and that the people of Fermanagh should be proud of their stroke services, adding that it was important that stroke services across all of Northern Ireland were sustainable moving forward.