As well as garnering more than 30,000 signatures supporting their Five-Point Plan for the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), a local hospital campaign group has also submitted a thorough submission to the public consultation on the temporary removal of emergency general surgery at the hospital.

The 44-page submission by Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) developed the points made in the Five-Point Plan to restore urgent and emergency surgery.

“The detailed submission covered a range of issues relating to suspension of Emergency General Surgery (EGS), highlighted deficiencies in the consultative process, identified negative impacts on local population from the removal of emergency surgery and exposed a range of short-, medium- and long-term failures by [Western Trust] management in securing health provision in the southern sector of the trust,” a spokesperson for SOAS said.

“The submission echoed the words of Essam Ghareeb, retired Consultant Surgeon at the SWAH, that a first necessary step both to ensure the restoration of acute and emergency surgery, and to prevent wider service impacts, was a commitment that Acute Services are going to the SWAH and will be there to stay.

“They contrasted this with the words of the current Chief Executive of the Western Trust, Neil Guckian, who admitted that he did not think that services at the Western Trust could be reconfigured to deliver the standards required under the June, 2022 Department of Health policy for Emergency and Urgent Surgery,” claimed the SOAS spokesperson.

SOAS said the response also reviewed existing cost structures and identified that the restoration of a new service with a locally-accountable board – even within the existing structures – would not necessarily result in substantially higher operating costs, and should be supported under wider transformation funding.

“Indeed, the group identified potential savings such as the removal of reliance on costly ambulance transfer costs (£500k annually), savings on locum premiums, and additional revenue generation through provision of NHS cross-Border elective services.

“The group also identified that little additional capital investment would be needed to develop the hospital’s existing state-of-the-art infrastructure and theatres, and that the hospital had already benefited from substantial investment to provide bariatric theatre equipment,” the spokesperson added.

SOAS also welcomed the endorsement by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council of the Five-Point Plan, as well as the other political representatives who have backed their campaign.

The group called on the public to ensure their local representative is supportive of SOAS’ vision as the local Council elections on May 18 get ever closer.