The Department of Health’s (DoH) consultation on the reshaping of stroke services in Northern Ireland ends today, Friday August 30. The Fermanagh Stroke Support Group wanted to thank the public for all their support and Stephen McAloon, a spokesperson for the group confirmed that remaining consultation questionnaires were to be delivered to the DoH today.

The DoH held two public meetings in Fermanagh to discuss the six options they put forward in their stroke consultation document. Only two of the six options included the long term retention of stroke services at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) with the other four resulting in the removal of stroke services from SWAH. In this scenario patients would have to travel to Altnagelvin or Craigavon for stroke treatment.

Mr. McAloon explained that the Support Group had helped people fill in over 6,000 questionnaires. This figure excludes those filled in online and forms filled out with the assistance of the Support Group.

“We would like to thank all the public who took the time to fill them in and all the all the political parties, MLAs, councillors and Fermanagh stroke group volunteers, and of course their families, who arranged the different venues and drop in sessions around Fermanagh and Tyrone since May,” he said before adding:

“This has been a hard slog and would not have been done without you're help we now await the outcome from the Department of Health DoH before we take any further action.”

The two public meetings held in Enniskillen were both excellently attended with DoH chiefs under no illusion as to the strength and depth of feeling people in the area have towards the stroke unit.