Mary Harney’s visit to Letterkenny
May 30th, 2006Yesterday, Minister for Health Mary Harney TD visited Letterkenny. The main focus of her visit was a meeting with HSE staff, Oireachtas Members and members of Donegal Action for Cancer Care to discuss the provision of Cancer services in Letterkenny.
I was very surprised to hear that Mary Harney was coming to Donegal (apparently, she was in the county all weekend on a brief holiday). It’s safe to say she’d be among the least popular people in the County at the minute. I don’t agree with much of her ideology (and often that of the party she leads), I don’t like what she’s doing with the Health Service (particularly the focus on privatisation) and I believe she has been very poor for Donegal, but it took a strong politican to visit the County.
That said, it seems she came without anything on offer. We have been told that Letterkenny General’s main hope of improved/retained services is based on a link-up with Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry. This will be discussed on June 9th, and we have been assured of a response, either way, by June 23rd. I have my doubts about this; Altnagelvin Hospital currently works close to capacity, and we would need guarantees of quality of, and access to, service for patients from Donegal (proposals for Donegal patients to be treated in Belfast were based on there being spare capacity available, after all the locals were dealt with). These proposals have been discussed before, and gotten us nowhere.
I’m not very hopeful about this, but it would be a huge improvement for local patients.
I met with Minister Harney briefly. I found her approachable, and receptive, but I’m sure she had heard everything I had to say a number of times before.
Sunday night’s meeting of the Constituency Organisation of Fianna Fail (which I was unable to attend) was another fiery affair. The meeting, once again, was dominated by local disgust at the lack of movement on the Cancer Care issue. There is no doubt that this issue is going to dominate the next election in both Donegal constituencies, and has the potential to affect the makeup of the next Government. There are strong rumours around Letterkenny regarding the name of a potential DACC candidate. Following the recent march in Letterkenny, it would be foolish to think a Cancer Care candidate would be unable to get elected.
Donegal is speaking with one voice. I just hope Mary Harney is listening.