Public meeting to take place to highlight lack of emergency healthcare in Carlow

A PUBLIC meeting is to take place this coming week to highlight the distance that people living in Carlow have to travel to access A&E care.

The meeting has been organised by People Before Profit councillor Adrienne Wallace who is due to go on Maternity Leave from Carlow County Council in the coming weeks.

According to Cllr Wallace, the public meeting has been called to highlight the need for an injury unit in Carlow to fill this gap and to call for improved services for children with disabilities.

The meeting will take place on Thursday, June 19 at 7pm in Reddy’s Bar at Tullow Street, Carlow

On the night, Cllr Wallace will be joined by TD Gino Kenny and the meeting will be chaired by John Cahill who is also a social care worker.

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Commenting ahead of the meeting, Cllr Wallace said: “Only two weeks ago St. Luke's Clinical Director urged locals to avoid the Emergency Department where possible. St. Luke’s, like most hospitals across the country, often struggles to meet the needs of people here and patients can often end up waiting on trollies. Carlovians also have to travel across county lines to access emergency care. While Carlow does not fit the criteria for its own A&E Unit we need to call on the government and the HSE to commit to developing an injury care unit here."

She added: “It would require significant investment in a site as well as improving the working conditions to retain and recruit nurses and doctors. An injury unit can cater to non-life threatening medical issues like burns, broken bones and the likes. My motion calling for this was recently passed at the Carlow MD but it is also important that Carlow people come together on this issue to apply pressure from below to our Government TDs and their colleagues in the Dáil.”

John Cahill, Tullow-based People Before Profit representative, added: “As a social care worker I see first hand how the services struggle to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Children’s services are under particular stress across Carlow. People Before Profit are fighting for a one-tier health system that treats people according to need and not the size of their wallet.

"We also want to see significant changes in how the health service is run. We want those on the frontlines, the nurses, care-workers and doctors to have more control over where the resources go and to abolish a lot of the unnecessary bureaucracy."