Representatives from the Western Health and Social Care Trust attended a public meeting in Irvinestown on the future of services at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH).

This is the first time that the Western Trust has engaged in person with public meetings.

The meeting is one of a larger group of meetings organised by concerned local people on the issue. Local people had been urged by the Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) group to organise in their local communities.

Organised by the Erne North Unionist Association, the meeting was chaired by Rodney Connor, former chief executive of the legacy Fermanagh District Council who gave a presentation on the development of SWAH.

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter about the meeting, Ulster Unionist MLA, Tom Elliott confirmed that he had invited Western Trust representatives to the meeting.

“I sent an invitation at the end of last week to The Trust, and Neil Guckian came back and said they’ would consider it and received confirmation that the Trust would send six representatives.”

The representatives were; Mr. Neil Guckian, Chief Executive ; Professor Ronan O’Hare, Assistant Medical Director at SWAH; Mark Gillespie, Assistant Director of Acute Services; Dr. Brendan Lavery, Medical Director. Also in attendance were; Chris Curran, Public Affairs and Communications Manager and Oliver Kelly, Head of Communications.

Also speaking at the meeting was UFU president David Brown, Florencecourt. The UFU has expressed concerns regarding the future of SWAH and had written to the Western Trust.

Speaking about the meeting, Tom Elliott said: “I asked him [Guckian] bluntly, I said, one of the biggest concerns in the community is, can you assure us that the South West Acute Hospital will retain its acute status for the foreseeable future?” and he replied: ‘Absolutely, yes, without question'.”

It is understood the general feeling from the panel from the Western Trust was that the changes to SWAH and recommendations from a group of General Surgical Consultants who sit on the review of General Surgery Network.

One matter raised at the meeting and at the previous full Fermanagh and Omagh District council meeting last week were options raised by The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) regarding the impact of the O&G services at SWAH as a result of loss of emergency general surgery.

A Western Trust spokesperson confirmed the RCOG action and confirmed they had been actioned by The Trust.

The options are as follows: On site middle tier surgical cover at SWAH, similar to that used in Altnagelvin for unpredictable intraoperative complications; exploring a private ambulance service contract to transfer acute patients to Altnagelvin and consideration that all elective cases that are high intermediate risk of bowel surgery are performed in Altnagelvin with extra lists allocated to you for this.

The Trust representatives took a number of questions from the room which had an estimated 60 people in attendance in Mahon’s Hotel, Irvinestown.

Speaking about the attendance of representatives at the meeting, a Western Trust spokesperson said: “The Trust was only in a position to communicate on Emergency General Surgery Services following the announcement by Trust Board on last Thursday, November 17 and since then have had a series of engagements with staff, MLA, MPs and the Fermanagh and Omagh Council."

“Going forward the Trust will be communicating and engaging further with the public and further details on this will follow in the coming week. This was also the first public meeting the Trust had been invited to attend.”