Rally demands emergency care so Fermanagh has ‘same likelihood to live’

People in Fermanagh deserve the “same likelihood to live” as those across Northern Ireland, a demonstration has heard.

Several hundred people travelled to Belfast to advocate for emergency general surgery (EGS) healthcare services in the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

Campaigners from Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) pushed a hospital bed up the hill at Stormont as they delivered letters to MLAs calling on them to support their drive.

The Western Trust said SWAH remains “an important acute hospital” and highlighted that an independent review has found mortality rates in the catchment area have fallen in the period EGS has been paused.

Demonstrators carried signs reading “time matters, 2 hours is too late” while one man in a wheelchair sat beneath a sign saying “this man will not make it to Altnagelvin”.

Secretary of SOAS Helen Hamill said people in Fermanagh “really woke up” in July 2025 when the Western Trust proposed that all EGS be delivered from the Altnagelvin Hospital on a permanent basis, a decision they later agreed to pause.

“There was a sort of a jolt factor,” she said.

“Staff were really upset about it. Patient stories started to come flooding out where there were terrible outcomes. Despite the fact that the Trust says there’s positive improvements, it isn’t the case on the ground.

“It’s not the case that we’re hearing from staff, and it’s not what we’re hearing from patients.”

Ms Hamill said some people in Fermanagh would be “hours away” from Altnagelvin when in need of life-saving care.

“You can’t be a mummy and have a section in SWAH as an emergency and be packed up and taken to another hospital from your baby. These things are happening,” she said.

She added: “It’s unsafe for us, that’s how it feels – you’re too far away. You’re much too far away to be assured of getting the same outcomes as everybody else.”

The campaigner said her message to UUP Health Minister Mike Nesbitt is: “We want the same services.

“We want the same likelihood to live and to die in Fermanagh as there is anywhere else in Northern Ireland, and currently we don’t,” she added.

Representatives from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, UUP and DUP were present at the demonstration, where calls of “we need the money” were heard.

Sinn Fein MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Jemma Dolan said there has been “no progress” on EGS services at SWAH since its suspension in 2022.

Asked if she would call on the finance minister, Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd, to ring-fence funding for the service, she said “the reason the service collapsed in the first place was because of not enough staff.

“So our understanding was that the money was there, the staff weren’t,” she said.

“So we’re still calling on the health minister. The decision lies with the health minister. It’s his department, and the final decision lies with him.”

Asked where the failure at SWAH lies, UUP leader Jon Burrows said “public services have been under-resourced” and there has been “real questions about the stewardship of public services by some at Stormont”.

“But we have a health minister who is gripping these issues,” he said.

“That’s why we’ve got more theatres open in the SWAH, that’s why we’re cutting wait lists, that’s why the health minister has delivered an extra 200,000 treatments this year, well ahead of the 70,000 target treatments that he was given by the Executive.

“So look, we appreciate that we need to do better but the Ulster Unionist Party is absolutely committed, not just to the SWAH but driving up health opportunities.”

DUP MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Deborah Erskine said the hospital “means a lot to each and every single one of us”.

“We need the health minister to commit to ensuring that emergency general surgery will come back to our rural hospital in Fermanagh,” she told the crowd on the steps of Stormont.

“If the trusts are saying that to the health minister, bring it back. It’s simple.

“So we will stand with you. We will do the best we can.

“Believe you me, we are fighting as much as we can within that building.”

In a statement, the Western Trust said the decision was made to end EGS due to an inability “to maintain a safe and sustainable emergency general surgery rota” after the resignation of their only consultant General Surgeon.

The Trust said: “Delivering Emergency General Surgery at South West Acute Hospital would require full compliance with the Department of Health revised Emergency General Surgery standards.

“This means that the previous commissioned service could not be re-instated and means that a different service would now be required.

“This would necessitate significant additional investment for additional services. Such services have not been commissioned for SWAH, and it is our position that the Trust does not have the authority to commission such an extensive expansion of services in SWAH.

“SWAH remains an important Acute Hospital within the Northern Ireland hospital network and its acute services provision has not changed.”

The Trust added that they had met with SOAS in February and claimed they “provided a detailed response on the SOAS Roadmap Recommendations and we have welcomed all future engagement with the group and wider community”.

The Trust further revealed that an Independent Review by CHKS found improved outcomes for patients from December 2022 through to April 2025 with mortality reducing by 24% and readmissions by 22.5%.

They say those statistics “reflect an improving picture in providing safer care and better recovery outcomes for patients across the Western Trust area”.