Thousands support protest against Monaghan Hospital closure plans.

Story by michael mcdonnell – Northern Standard

The massive turn-out at a protest on Saturday 17th May against plans to close Monaghan General Hospital as an acute facility made it clear that there remains a strong level of determination among the county's public to continue the fight to retain a service that has been part and parcel of the community since it was founded at the site of the old gaol over 70 years ago.

Upwards of 4,000 people sup­ported the rally in Monaghan town, which can be regarded as quite an achievement at a time of justifiable fears that disillusion­ment might have been creeping in as service after service was removed from Monaghan, despite the on-going efforts of campaign­ers and public representatives to have the facility retained as an acute, on-call centre with the capacity to save lives in the event of emergency.

IGNORED

Hospital Alliance chairperson Peadar McMahon admitted, how­ever, that there was great disap­pointment at the fact that the event was almost totally ignored by the national print and broad­cast media, despite the fact that all major TV, radio and newspaper outlets had been notified well in advance. He agreed that this con­trasted sharply with the blanket coverage given to new Taoiseach Brian Cowen's "homecoming" events in Co Offaly, where similar crowds turned out for very differ­ent reasons.

Mr McMahon went as far as to concede that the media profile in Monaghan might have been high­er were it not for the clash of events, but there was no way of foreseeing this when the date for the protest was planned.

From a Fianna Fail point of view, the contrast between Monaghan and Tullamore could not have been greater, as the thousands in

Church Square heard speaker upon speaker lambaste the absence of Government party representa­tives from the podium.

The first salvo came from Dr lllona Duffy, who slammed local Fianna Fail TD Margaret Conlon for not attending, and again asserted that Ms Conlon had stat­ed before being elected that she would resign if the hospital was under threat.

Dr James Reilly of Fine Gael hoped the Fianna Fail county councillor present in the crowd (there were in fact two — Robbie Gallagher and Seamus Coyle) would take the message bade to the party that the people of Monaghan would "not forget" if their hospital was closed, while Sinn Fein's Caoimhghin ó Caolain called on Fianna Fail voters in the crowd to pressurise their councillors and TDs on the hospital.

Monaghan's former Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna pledged to put as much pressure as she could on the Government minis­ters who were members of her party with regard to the hospital and healthcare issues, and to remind them that they had to accept "collective responsibility" in relation to Government poli­cies.

It was noted by both Ms McKenna and Deputy óCaolain that this constituency now had a representative at the Cabinet table, in the form of new Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith, with the latter stating that Minister Smith had a responsibili­ty not just to farm families but to the healthcare of people in Cavan and in Monaghan also.

Alliance chairperson Mr McMahon conceded to the Northern Standard this week, however, that it was very unlikely the new Minister would seek to repay the man who appointed him by rocking the boat on the Monaghan Hospital issue.

The reality was that, in reappointing Mary Harney to the Department of Health, Brian Cowen had com­mitted himself to the "reform package" she had been imple­menting all along, which was based on, “centralising" and pri­vatising hospital services.

SHOULD RESIGN

When asked if Margaret Cordon should take the route Dr Duffy alleges she promised before the election, and threaten to resign if acute hospital services are taken from Monaghan, Mr McMahon agreed that she "should not go back on her word".

But even if Ms Conlon were to take a stand, it would probably have no impact without the sup­port of other FF councillors and Oireachtas members. If they were opposed to what was happening in Monaghan, as they said they were, the Fianna Fail TDs and councillors in the county should make this clear by stating they would resign from the party unless the plans were stopped. And this would have to be before the acute services were removed from Monaghan.

Everything else had been tried, and the Alliance was now appeal­ing to the Fianna Fail public representatives to take a stand. Stating that they were opposed to the policy was no good; a threat to resign en masse was the only action that might save the hospi­tal.

"Failing that, they should be honest and say straight out that they are not prepared to go against party policy," the Alliance chairperson said. The same applied to Green Party representatives, he added, and indeed, it was the Greens — who signed the pre-election pledge — that should give a lead on the issue, including their Ministers.

It was of course very unlikely that any such action would be taken by the local Government party representatives, but Mr McMahon hoped they would take note of the massive crowd that turned out on Saturday, bearing in mind that a number of other events of significance were taking place in the area, including Confirmation and First Holy Communion ceremonies as well as sporting fixtures, weddings and a funeral.

The hospital campaigners will also take heart from the solidarity and support shown by other groups from around the country that marched on Saturday, includ­ing Patients Together, SIPTU Health, Irish Nurses Organisation (including its Cavan branch), Monaghan Community Network and the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. Many of the groups are involved in the new national cam­paign for a better health service. The increasingly nationwide aspect of the campaign was in turn reflected by the repeated calls made from the platform for local communities around the country to come together on the hospital closures issue.

PAGEANT

The parade itself formed a colour­ful if somewhat macabre pageant, with a hearse (provided by Conor Clerkin of Threemilehouse) being followed by the Monaghan Community Brass Band and Clontibret O'Neill Pipe Band, and these in turn leading a truck (courtesy of Gerry Coyle Joinery Ltd) carrying the loudspeakers through which Mr McMahon directed the march and led the chants. The many and varied carried the now all too familiar slogans calling for a restoration of the hospital and protection of basic rights and services — all underlining a simmering public anger at the very real prospect that the safety net of quick access to life-saving services in the event of emergency is soon to be with­held from the population throughout large sections of Co Monaghan.

Public representatives present included Mayor of Monaghan Gary Carville, local TDs Caoimhghm ó Caolain and Seymour Crawford, Senator Joe O'Reilly, Cavan Fine Gael county councillor Scan McKiernan, Mayor of Monaghan Town Padraigin Ui Mhurchadha, Mayor of Ballybay Michael Gilmour, Mayor of Castleblayney Jackie Crowe (apologies were received from Mayor of Clones Ross Mealiff, who had family members in attendance), all opposition party members of Monaghan Co County Council, and many town councillors from around the coun­ty. Green Party county councillor Vincent P Martin attended, as did his Fianna Fail counterparts Robbie Gallagher and Seamus Coyle.

Also prominent at the rally was well-known country singer Big Tom McBride, who was thanked by Mr McMahon for supporting the hospital at which he had received great treatment.

MARCH

Led by the hearse to mark the life or death significance of the threat­ened demise of acute services at Monaghan, the protesters marched down Hospital Hill and on via the North Road, Glaslough Street and the Diamond to emerge at Church Square, where they heard rousing speeches giving vent to depth of anger on the issue.

Any worries the organisers might have had about the turn­out quickly disappeared as it became obvious that thousands of were following the lengthy parade as it made its way down from the hospital. On arrival at the podium in front of Monaghan Courthouse, Alliance chairperson Peadar McMahon faced the somewhat satisfying task of requesting the crowd to move on towards Dawson Street to make room for those still pour­ing in at the back of the march.

The parade had earlier stopped for a minute's silence on Hospital Hill, close to the home of Benny McCullagh, a man who lived within view of Monaghan Hospital, but who had been taken past it an ambulance following HSE protocols, and who was dead on arrival at Cavan Hospital. Mr McMahon warned the protesters that this was the kind of scenario Monaghan people would again be facing unless the HSE's plans for Monaghan were changed. The tribute was in memory of Mr McCullagh and all the others who "died needlessly" during the last period Monaghan was off call, he added.

The thousands who crammed into Church Square were told by Mr McMahon that this would go down in history as a day when, a massive crowd in Monaghan.

THE MESSAGE

 Dr Ilona Duffy from the Monaghan Community Alliance speaking at the protest in Me Reilly, FG Health Spokesperson, Mayor of Monaghan Gary Carville, Seymour Crawford TD, and Caoimhgin ó Caolain turned out to say, "We need our hospital." He thanked all present for showing their outright rejec­tion of the plans to take acute services from the hospital on the hill.

Dr Illona Duffy of the Alliance told the rally that what was being planned by the HSE for Monaghan was unsafe. She was saying that as a doctor, bound by a code of ethics not to lie or falsely scare the public. A recent study in the UK, looking at 10,000 patients, had given a clear mes­sage with regard to emergencies, which was that greater dis­tance from services meant greater loss of life.

In an address that recounted the stripping of services from Monaghan Hospital over the last eight years, she noted the ongoing mantra from Government and the HSE that no service would be removed until a "safer service" was in place. But it was clear that the local HSE managers were now being pressurised to get the acute services out of Monaghan by as early as June of this year.

CONLON ATTACKED

On this point, Dr Duffy attacked the stance of Government party TD Margaret Conlon, who was accused of repeating HSE state­ments "verbatim". The Monaghan GP reiterated her claim that, prior to the general election, Ms Conlon had given assurances that the hospital would be a "resignable issue for her". But Deputy Conlon now seemed to be saying this would not happen.

By contrast, Fianna Fail TDs in other areas where hospital service closures were 'threatened had "stood firmly" with constituents,

Dr Duffy claimed. This was what the Alliance was demanding of the party's TDs in Monaghan, she told an approving crowd.

Focusing his attack on privatisation in hospital services, high-profile Socialist Party representative Joe Higgins assured the rally it was a privilege to stand with the people of Monaghan in defense of their health services. In a typically impassioned and fiery address, the colourful former TD said hospital closures and downsizing were not about what was best for the health of the people, but were resulting from a cold ideological decision" to handle healthcare in the same way as the beef trade, by handing it over to bankers and the for-profit sector.

The Government had promised an extra 2,000 public hospital beds in 2002, he said. But these had not been given, because "behind our backs" there was a deal to sell public lands to private hospital developers. Communities must now stand up and demand that the hospital beds "savagely ripped out in the 1980s" be returned, he declared.

If Monaghan Hospital was not viable as a small hospital, why was it that Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney had been going around the country opening smaller private hospitals? It was time for communities around the country affected by health cuts to build a united, unstoppable campaign and make the Government "stand up and sweat".

BISHOP CALLS FOR CONSULTATION

Bishops Joseph Duffy and Michael Jackson both sent apologies for being unable to attend the rally, but a statement from Bishop Duffy was read out by Peadar McMahon, which called on political leaders to "listen carefully" to the concerns being expressed in Monaghan.

If centralisation was required for efficiency, patient safety or neces­sary economy, it should be able to "co-exist with appropriate local provision" the Bishop stated. It seemed to him that consultation with local practitioners and repre­sentatives was essential to provid­ing a service addressing local needs, and he could personally identify with the community's appreciation of their hospital and loyalty to it.

Mr McMahon said the Alliance, too, was requesting that Brian Cowen listen to the Bishop and sit down with campaigners to work out a policy for local healthcare.

Outgoing INO President, Madeleine Spiers Hell said the truth in Ireland was that, after 10 years of unprecedented wealth we had the best cafe bars and hotels in Europe and the "crappiest" schools and hospitals. She did not mean the doctors, nurses and other staff, but the manage­ment and the lack of vision. As Professor John Crown said in Dublin, the senior HSE manage­ment should stay at home and leave the work to nurses and doc­tors.

CO-LOCATION IS SICK

Slamming the Government's poli­cy of promoting and facilitating co-located private hospital — which, she claimed, even Professor Brendan Drumm was against — she asked why one door for the rich and one door for the rest should be created on the same campus. It was because there was profit in the sick; but it was "sick" to make profits in this way. People had to make a stand and use "popular power" to embarrass the Government out of this policy.

As nurses and midwives, the INO was standing for a safe health system, with safe stan­dards of care accessed through one door, equally, equitably and fairly for all. The Government should not be allowed to destroy this sense of community.

Ms Spiers also put to the Fine Gael representatives present to put forward health policies that people could "identify with". That meant a well-funded public health system for everyone, rather than a trans-national, entrepreneurial, for-profit, American style system that would deliver health for the rich and leave the rest to die in ambulances on the way to poorly funded hospitals. People had to "stand together to get rid of this Government" she told the gathering.

Janette Byrne of Patients Together said her group came together five years ago after her mother sat in a trolley and on a chair for five days in a "filthy A&E" in Dublin. She herself had been diagnosed with cancer, and was alive today because she lived 15 minutes from a hospital to which she was taken by ambulance. But the lives of people in Monaghan were just as impor­tant, and she was elated to see them out in their thousands.

She had also spoken at rallies in Dundalk, Ennis, Waterford and all around the country, where people were coming onto the streets to try to save services at their hospitals. Monaghan was not alone and should take heart in knowing that others were doing the same thing in their own towns. They were not always getting media coverage, but they were there, and everyone needed to stand together.

Sligo-based Labour party county and borough councillor Veronica Cawley said people in her area were also out on the streets, protesting against plans to move their cancer-care services from Sligo to Galway, which was a two-and-a-half hour drive. There had been a tremendous turn-out at meeting in Sligo.

PEOPLE POWER

Cllr Cawley echoed earlier speak­ers by calling on people to get together. There had been 11 years of Fianna Fail-led Government in Ireland. There had been prosperi­ty, but it did not go into the serv­ices to serve the people of the country. What happened in Monaghan was deplorable, and Sligo was facing something simi­lar. But people power would get going, and Fianna Fail had "better start listening"!

Fine Gael health spokesperson Dr James Reilly slammed the Government's policy on private healthcare, which he said was creating a system where the wealthy and insured could "turn right" to be looked after, while poorer people, the elderly and the chronically ill would have to "turn left and hope for the best. Co-location of public and private hospitals was a concept he despised, and it would be of no benefit to the most vulnerable in society.

With regard to Monaghan Hospital, the idea that the excellent service it was providing for the community on its own

doorstep could be replaced by something "better" 40 miles down the road was just more spin, and another con-job. Monaghan had 3,000 medical admissions per year, while Cavan was unable to cope with its own 5,000 each year. And now Cavan would be expected to facilitate the people of Monaghan, despite the fact that it was being given no additional resources.

WASTED MONEY

The HSE itself was dysfunctional, Dr Reilly alleged, and as for the "great black hole" into which funds were said to be disappear­ing, he gave a startling statistic that suggested the management and administration was account­ing for much of the missing money — in 2000 there were only six high-paid "Grade 8" managers in all the health boards, while today there were 714 managers in this category.

In response to Ms Spiers' chal­lenge to Fine Gael to put forward policies people could identify with, he said an underlying prin­ciple of party policy would be to bring medicine to the people, not people to medicine, to loud applause. Fine Gael would keep its word on delivering local health services.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

Well-known Green Party activist and former MEP Patricia McKenna said that as a member of a party in Government, she accepted that there was a collec­tive responsibility among all Cabinet members. Those in the Green party with concerns about current healthcare policies, including the push towards co-location, were determined to ensure that their own two minis­ters accepted this collective responsibility. Ministers could not seek to take responsibility for their own portfolios and nothing else, and she was committed to impressing this upon John Gormley and Eamon Ryan (Ministers for Environment and Energy respectively). But those who had voted for and supported Fianna Fail also had an obligation to put pressure on that party's leadership to abandon the current policy. The constituency now had a Fianna Fail minister also, and pressure had to be put on all the Cabinet members.

The Monaghan woman echoed the other speakers who called for hospital campaigners around the country to "fight for their rights" and join together. It was galling to see what was happening in Monaghan, but this was a blue­print for the rest of the country, and it was essential that people around the country get on their feet and get active in opposing the policy.

That policy was not just Health Minister Harney's it was core Fianna Fail policy, as was under­lined by the new Taoiseach when he spoke in the Dail of the era of the "county hospital" being over. Ms McKenna finished by pledg­ing to do anything she could to help the hospital campaign, and to give it every support.

WHERE ARE THEY? Sinn Fein health spokesperson Caoimhghin ó Caolain placed a. strong emphasis on the absence of

Government party TDs at the protest. The cross-party approach that had been taken in the years following the 1998 "Framework Document" had all but disap­peared, and he repeatedly asked why this was so. Why were the three other Cavan/Monaghan TDs not present on the platform? He backed the calls being made for campaigning groups around the State to build a movement the Government could not ignore. The reality was that Monaghan would lose all its remaining 50 acute medical and six critical care beds by November. That meant there was "very little time" left in which to save the services. It would be very hard to undo such changes after an election in four years' time he warned, as the harm would have already been done.

Mary Harney's policies as Minister for Health had been "disastrous", but they were also the policies of Fianna Fail, as had been confirmed by the new Taoiseach when he spoke in the Dail of a need to change people's mindsets about the "local county hospital".

The people of Monaghan there­fore had to remain active, and it would do no good to sit back and say this had been a successful protest. On this point, he appealed to the "ordinary decent people who voted Fianna Fail", many of whom he had no doubt were at this protest, to lobby their TDs and councillors on the issue. The power lay in the people, but they had to use it well, as the clock was already ticking.

THANKS FOR SUPPORT

Bringing the momentous event to a close, Alliance chairperson Peadar McMahon thanked all who made it a success, including Monaghan Community Brass Band and Clontibret's' O'Neill Pipe Band, Gerry Coyle for sup­plying the truck;. Murphy Video Services, the Alliance committee members, Marie O'Connor and all who helped with publicity, and, most of all, the people who came out to support the rally-On that point, the Alliance com­mittee were heartened to have it reaffirmed that the people of Monaghan had not given up and were still willing to fight for their services.

"We needed to hear that there wasn't as much apathy in this county as we were being led to believe," Mr McMahon said. "Thank you for showing us today that you're still behind is, and that the fight must go on to save those services up there on the hill. So thank you indeed for being with us."

Thanking all the speakers and the political representatives who supported the protest, Mr McMahon finished by assuring a tired but still fired-up crowd that the Alliance would continue to put pressure on Brian Cowen, Mary Harney and everyone else that needed to have pressure put on them.

He hoped that those who spoke would continue to do likewise, but echoing earlier pleas, he said the public themselves also had to keep the pressure on, make their feelings known to those they had elected.

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