Campaigns to have the hours of operation at the Minor Injury Unit located at Monaghan Hospital expanded, and to have urgent improvements made in ambulance availability in the Monaghan area, gathered further momentum at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council. Correspondence from the RCSI Hospital Group to the Council, which outlined in detail the number using the Monaghan MIU on a monthly basis since its establishment in 2010, was challenged as a “smoke and mirrors” exercise by Sinn Féin councillor Seán Conlon. Councillor Conlon said the statistics were being used as an excuse by the RCSI not to increase the unit’s opening hours.
He had a motion adopted reminding the RCSI that Monaghan was the only one of the country’s 11 MIUs not to operate on a 12/7 basis and calling “once again for the equality of services across all MIUs and that the Monaghan Hospital MIU’s hours are extended accordingly.” Sinn Féin’s Brian McKenna, citing his own recent personal experience and that of others, argued that the Monaghan MIU was not being utilised to its full capacity, and claimed that staff at Cavan Hospital were angry about the number of referrals it was receiving from the MIU for procedures that could have been carried out there.
The issue of excessive delays in ambulances attending the scene of recent medical emergencies in the Monaghan area was raised at the meeting by Independent councillor Paudge Connolly, who successfully proposed that the Monaghan local authority endorse a resolution sent to it by Clare Co Council which called on Health Minister Stephen Donnelly TD “to initiate an independent review of the gross under-resourcing of the National Ambulance Service, and the suitability, effectiveness and efficiency of the current dynamic deployment system used by the NAS for deployment of services in rural Ireland.” (The understanding in Minister Donnelly’s Department of the issues being raised with it by Monaghan Co Council, and of the status of Monaghan Hospital itself, appeared questionable from the…
