Debate contribution: South West Acute Hospital, Enniskillen

Debate contribution by Mr Colm Gildernew on 24 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Colm Gildernew

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

24 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

South West Acute Hospital, Enniskillen

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5404873

Read the official Assembly record

Text

My colleagues from Fermanagh have largely dealt with a lot of the detail of the issue. I will touch a bit more on the general stuff, which is really critical. It is critical for the South West Acute Hospital, because it is not just the hinterland to its south that is excluded from playing a role but, given its geographic location, the hinterland to its west and east. That makes the hospital really important. I was reflecting on the fact that, before Christmas, the Brantry area rural development (BARD) centre hosted a meeting of the Southern Trust area integrated partnership board (AIPB).

It was noticeable that everyone who came to that meeting arrived extremely stressed; you would have thought that they were being taken to Timbuktu instead of the Brantry. Councillor Gael Gildernew, who is a member of the AIPB, pointed out to those from the Southern Trust that they were not by any means at the extreme end of their area. In fact, they were about 30 miles from Craigavon and had almost another 30 miles to go to get to Fivemiletown. However, she also pointed out that where they were sitting was about three miles from Monaghan, so there is a bit of a lesson in that.

I was privileged to serve as Chair of the Health Committee. In that role, I visited Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin and, as I mentioned previously, explored with people there the potential for a paediatric pathology service. They indicated — my colleague made a similar point — that some services require an economy of scale to recruit and provide a full rota that allows everyone to be confident that they will get the time off, the training opportunities and the volume of cases that they need. Interestingly, during that conversation, colleagues from the Crumlin children's hospital stated that the good ideas of professionals and clinicians sometimes went into the Department and that, sometimes, that was where those great ideas went to die. That was said not disparagingly but simply because the Department did not have the same focus or momentum in prioritising the development of services. It has often been said to me, however, that clinicians and professionals are often well ahead of trusts and Departments on that. As the end of the previous mandate, when we came to draw up our legacy report, we stipulated that, on the basis of what we had heard from health sectors including cancer, children's services and older people, one of the key recommendations from the outgoing Committee should be on the need for a small island such as this to cooperate better on delivering healthcare. That need was stark, and, as one of our main recommendations, everyone and all parties agreed that it should be a priority. Minister, will you commit to putting in place a task force to look across different areas at what services could be better delivered and at using the South West Acute Hospital to serve, as was intended, its wider hinterland?

502 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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