Protest delays new hospital plans

Campaigners are fighting for the retention of acute services

Plans due to be unveiled for a £175m new hospital in Enniskillen have been halted after protestors forced the health trust meeting to adjourn.

Plans for a £90m hospital in Omagh were also due to be announced at the Sperrin Lakeland Trust Board meeting.

Campaigners fighting for the retention of acute services at Omagh disrupted the meeting in the town on Tuesday.

The demonstrators were angry that services at the town's hospital are to be downgraded.

The BBC understands the trust had intended to announce that the proposed site for the £175m hospital would be at Drumcoo, just off the main road from Enniskillen to Irvinestown.

Danny McSorley of the Omagh Hospital Campaign said the trust had been "given a very clear message".

"It is a clear message of the frustration felt by this community... the trust must go back to the drawing board," he said.

Trust chairman Harry Mullan said it was involved in preparing "the future of healthcare delivery".

The proposed site for the £175m hospital in Enniskillen

This is the most significant shift in how health services will be delivered in the future.

"So quite understandably, in such a significant change of profile, communities will be concerned - and are rightly concerned - about how their services will be delivered."

In March 2004, Omagh District Council lost a case at the Court of Appeal to challenge the decision to remove acute services from the Tyrone County Hospital in the town.

The case was brought one year after the government announced the hospital was to lose the services in favour of the new hospital.

In 2003, former Health Minister Des Browne announced that acute services were to be removed from the hospital.

At that time he said the profile of hospital services was no longer appropriate and too many acute hospitals were being sustained for the population.

'Vulnerability'

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the intensive care unit at the Tyrone County Hospital has been closed temporarily because of staffing problems.

Staff shortages led to its closure on Friday night.

The Sperrin Lakeland Trust Board discussed the closure at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon in Omagh.

Trust chief executive Hugh Mills said the unit's closure showed the vulnerability of the services at Tyrone County.

"It demonstrates the difficulties the Trust has in maintaining high quality services in small hospitals," he said.

"In essence, the proposals we were discussing this morning were about the modernisation of services so we are able to provide high quality services for the whole community."