I hate to be cynical. But one might not blame me for being a little bit unconvinced about the recent announcement that St Luke’s is to finally get the upgrade that it has been waiting for, for the past decade.
We have heard so many mixed messages regarding acute services at St Luke’s Hospital over the years. There was the negative news that the A+E was to be scaled down and the maternity services were to be closed entirely and these services were to be relocated to a ‘centre of excellence’ at Waterford Regional Hospital. This was still a concern for many up until this week’s announcement....
Then we heard the good news that there was to be a new endoscopy unit following the untimely death of Susie Long. In fact there was great excitement about this announcement. Before she died Susie and her family and the media and some local dignitaries were all invited to the hospital to see the plans on paper and hear about the schedule for the project... which never happened. This has been a huge source of disappointment to Susie’s family and friends to date and a kick in the teeth to the medical staff who were so hopeful for a positive turnaround to come out of the desperately sad tale of Susie Long’s death.
In the meantime we have seen the closure of the gynaecology ward and several other beds in the hospital in the last couple of years leading to overcrowding in some wards. We’ve seen a recruitment freeze in the HSE which meant that no new staff were allowed to be hired although staff may have been off on leave.
On the up side we saw the opening of the day care unit which was launched by the Minister for Health at the time Mary Harney. At this event, the Minister praised the hospital and held the facility up one of the leading hospitals in the country in terms of its management, its day to day operations and also for its Medical Assessment Unit which is one of the few in the country.
It’s true that there has been a lot of talk around our hospital and some has been good and some not so good. The one thing that has always been constant is that the staff at the hospital are on top of their game.
So the recent announcement that there is to be €13million allocated for the upgrading of the A+E, the Medical Assessment Unit and the new day services unit, although excellent news, should we take it with a pinch of salt? Are we really going to see these funds and if so are they going to be in our lifetime? Where is this money coming from in this economic climate?
The timeframe has been pretty much laid out and it’s hoped that the works will get underway early next year. Fingers crossed that this will happen.
This is the first major announcement from our local Minister Phil Hogan since taking up his position. And if it is one that comes to fruition within the stated timeframe — we might be able to finally relax and be confident that now that we have representation at the senior cabinet table, we can be assured that this is the beginning of a lot more to come for Kilkenny people, who to date feel that they have been neglected by previous governments in regard to funding, jobs, inward investment etc. We haven’t benefited from this advantage in many years and so let’s hope that Minister Hogan can really do something positive for Kilkenny by his presence at such a senior level.
