'Lives are being lost' - Northern Ireland farmers fight for survival of rural hospitals

Farmers For Action’s (FFA) Steering Committee attended the Northern Health Trust event last week alongside SOS Causeway and SOS Rural Hospital Group to make their presence known concerning the lack of resources in rural hospitals. 

The event held last week at Tullyglass Hotel was attended by the FFA's William Taylor who spoke at the event to present the group's issues with the current state of healthcare in rural areas of Northern Ireland. This was just one of the many events the FFA attended out of a series of Consultation Events laid out by each Trust. 

This event was hosted by representatives of NHS Management, including the Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Michael McBride.

Taylor said: "The current timetable of seven consultation events started on 17 December in Newtownards and finishes on 18 February in Armagh and with two optional online events. The general public need to know that these events follow a pattern of presenting glossed over reasons for change under the guise of attaining better outcomes for patients."

READ NEXT: Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council strikes District Rate for 2025/26 financial year

He continued: "This follows a pattern - because the NHS management claims they can’t obtain sufficient consultant staff for Daisy Hill, Enniskillen, Causeway and then they make it all seem so easy for patients to be transferred from Causeway to Antrim, Daisy Hill to Altnagelvin etc, by ambulance.

"In Ballymena we had present four recently retired doctors from Causeway who each took their turn at question time to lay it on the line how ending acute emergency surgery was not sustainable at Causeway as the back-up would fall away due to staff demoralisation and lack of career prospects and more."

Taylor stated: "One of the doctors really laid it on the line that moving patients with strokes, heart attacks etc one hour, two hours plus in an ambulance to a central hospital could never work as lives would be lost!"

A retired paramedic who still works part-time out of Ballymena argued at the event that lives are being lost as the situation stands with rural ambulances, which he said were already in short supply, being forced to transfer patients to more central hospitals. 

The paramedic added that crews are tasked with sending patients to hospitals in Belfast at the beginning of their shift and are then retained there by the Belfast Trust to attend calls in the Belfast area until the end of their shift - regardless of the needs in their own area. 

Taylor argued at the event: "Farming families across Northern Ireland work in the most unsafe industry across these islands and therefore need their local hospitals." He then went on to commend the work that had been done in Causeway by local retired doctors over the years.

People were asked to raise their hands if they wanted to see rural hospitals depleted of services which would then flood Antrim and other hospitals who are already at limited capacity. Of course, no one raised their hand to which Taylor urged the NHS officials to take into account. 

The FFA has called on rurally based MLAs to advocate for the retainment of rural hospitals with services reinstated and enhanced.