The announcement by Prof Higgins today amounts, not so much to a reconfiguration of services with the purpose of enhancing services, but of actually cutting services to satellite hospitals in the region.
I am dismayed with the proposal to downgrade facilities such as Mallow Hospital, to a status where they will only have the capacity to provide ‘basic acute care'

By concentrating all resources in CUH, the HSE plans to bring about a fundamental shift in how care is delivered, and one that could put at risk, the potential medical outcomes of patients who live further from CUH. Anybody who lives more than an hour from CUH will rightly feel nervous about these proposed changes.

I am particularly concerned that the statement by Prof Higgins has made no specific reference to provision for people who may require acute ambulance services. We have nowhere near enough ambulances to service this model, and no evidence that the required number of EMT teams will be rolled out.

Questions also arise as to what would happen, should CUH be placed under quarantine in the case of say an MRSA outbreak. Centralising services in one facility means that in that eventuality, the delivery of acute services for the entire region would be impacted, and that the system would simply not be able to provide treatment to those who need it.