A public meeting will be held in Newry to discuss the concerns around the future of Daisy Hill Hospital.
The Daisy Hill Hospital Future Group, in partnership with the Daisy Hill Pathfinder group, are organising the meeting with the Southern Trust’s senior management and surgical team.
The meeting – open to all – will be an opportunity for the Trust to respond to public concerns about services at Daisy Hill Hospital and to publicly consult with local people about the relocation of emergency general surgery
to the Craigavon Hospital site.
The meeting will take place in the Miller Suite in Canal Court Hotel, Newry at 6pm on Wednesday, March 22.
This meeting will provide an opportunity for members of the public and representatives from across business, political and civic society in the greater Newry, south Down and south Armagh area to hear directly about the Future Group’s 7-point plan for the development of Daisy Hill and the Trust’s Senior Management will set out how the Trust is responding to these proposals, including the decision to develop an Elective Surgical Centre at the Hospital.
Mark Taylor, the lead consultant appointed by the previous Health Minister Robin Swann to conduct a regional review of surgical services across Northern Ireland due of ongoing pressures facing this service, will be attending to outline regional plans for the future of Emergency General Surgery.
The Trust’s surgical team will outline how the new emergency surgical pathway has worked over the last year after being introduced as a temporary change and the clinical case for permanently consolidating emergency surgical services at Craigavon Hospital.
A senior representative from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) will also be in attendance to answer any questions about NIAS role in any proposed changes.
The meeting will be chaired by Dr. Conor Patterson, Chair of Daisy Hill Future Group and CEO of the Newry & Mourne Co-operative and Enterprise Agency.
The Future Group is made up of people who support the stabilisation and development of services at Daisy Hill and includes representatives from business organisations, local MPs, MLAs, Councillors and Daisy Hill Pathfinder members.
Members of both the Future Group and the Pathfinder group will also be available to answer questions from those attending about their shared vision for the future of Daisy Hill Hospital.
Attendees are asked to read all the consultation documents before coming to the public meeting and the documents can be accessed directly on the Southern Trust’s website here.
