Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Fighting for a Health Service: The Whiteabbey Hospital CampaignAuthor(s): Derek RaySource: Fortnight, No. 165 (Mar. 31, 1978), pp. 5-6Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25546599 .

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31 March 1978/5 . . ' ' ' i i . in.

FIGHTING FOR A HEALTH SERVICE ?THE WHITEABBEY HOSPITAL CAMPAIGN by DEREK RAY

If any of the multitude of fact finders,

political delegates, social scientists and other assorted problem spotters who descended on Northern Ireland in the late 1960s had suggested that the

relatively contented people of

Newtownabbey would be fighting the rundown of their local hospital a decade later, most of us would have

responded with cynical disbelief. After all, any comparison that might have been made between the inner city and in fast growing suburbs such as

Glengormley and Jordanstown would have suggested that if community protest was to come from anywhere it would not emanate from the well heeled semi-dwellers gathered around

f ammoney Hill, or for that matter from their less privileged neighbours in the estates along the Doagh Road.

A number of reasons would have

supported the view that the growth of

Newtownabbey, in terms of housing, employment opportunities, schools, a

massive new leisure centre and various

community facilities, meant the

growth rather than decline of

Whiteabbey Hospital. The Hospital's central location ? at the junction of the Doagh Road and the O'Neill

Road ? is but one factor in its favour. Its catchment area, estimated to contain 90,000 people, and the fact that there is ample room for expansion in the grounds are others. But then one wouldn't have needed to rely on such supporting evidence ? the future

of Whiteabbey Hosptial seemed, in

1970, as secure as that of

Newtownabbey itself. At least, that's the feeling one gets

from reading the Hansards of the time. Robin Baillie, Anne Dickson and the late Vivian Simpson put several questions to successive

Ministers of Health, all of which concerned the future development of

Whiteabbey Hospital. Would the

proposed maternity unit be built? Would there be a 24-hour casualty

service? Would the Hospital continue to grow in response the the expansion of Newtownabbey? Was the future of a well respected hospital which had a

proven record in responding to

community needs secure? The answer was always 'Yes'. In fact, by 1974 a consultant gynaecologist had been

appointed to prepare for the maternity unit and plans for the building had been put out to tender. When

reorganisation of the health service took place, the Management Comm ittee handed over control to the

Northern Health and Services Board confident that expansion was now a

matter of implementation rather than discussion.

In 1977 this confidence, and that of those working in or connected with the

Hospital, was severely bruised by Lord Melchett's announcement that a new

general hospital would be built in Antrim and that the future role of

Whiteabbey would be a supporting

one. Lord Melchett declined to say what he meant by a 'supporting hospital', but voiced his well rehearsed belief in the need to involve the

community in consultations about the future role of the Hospital.

The community concerned was

understandably cynical about this commitment by the trendy peer. He

had, after all, only come face to face with a member of the Whiteabbey Hospital Action Committee because that member happened to be having treatment in Whiteabbey when Lord

Melchett paid a brief visit! Yet the Action Committee had to respond to this offer of cooperation. To have

ignored it would have left the

Hospital's future in the hands of DHSS planners of the usual faceless

type. Moreover, opponents of the Northern Board's policy were assured that a special survey would be undertaken of hospital services in the area, in which the position of

Whiteabbey would be given particular attention.

It's just as well that the Action Committee decided to mount an

aggressive campaign on behalf of the

Hospital, the aims of which were to retain all existing services, to secure the long promised Maternity Unit, and to secure a 24-hour Casualty Service, rather than wait for action by the Northern Board. Had the committee taken a passive role they

would never have discovered, for

Private Clinic, a suspicion that is well

grounded in the light of the ?280,000 so far donated to the Clinic by the

medical profession. John Robb answers this by claiming that consultants are frustrated by working conditions in the NHS and that the Private Clinic will allow them an 'outlet for independent performance'

? presumably he means by this the

commission of more tonsillectomies and hernia operations.

Quite clearly, the higher echelons of the medical profession are on to a

good thing with the Private Clinic, but so also are the private health insurance companies and industry itself, which between them have contributed over ?500,000 to the clinic's coffers. Companies like BUPA hope to expand into the local

private sector through their company insurance schemes and industry

benefits through the inducement of a very real 'perk' for senior employees and knows at the same time that key personnel will receive preferential treatment. So everyone benefits from the Private Clinic except those who

really need the health service. In our research the Workers' Research Unit discovered that not only is the Infant

Mortality Rate and the Adult Mortality Rate for every age group in

the north the highest in these islands, but that it is the working class populations of Belfast and West of the Bann that suffer the most.

Working class standards of health are bad and are deteriorating

? small wonder when one learns that many of Belfast's communities for example are totally bereft of doctors, and in

those areas fortunate to have one he/she is so overworked and overstretched that prescriptions are doled out by receptionists. One brand new clinic in Andersosntown, the

Ballyowen Clinic, built for thirteen doctors eighteen months ago, has

only ever had two doctors, and then not at the same time.

Private medicine, because it erodes the very basis of social medicine, can

only make this situation worse. The market place is a wholly inappropriate forum in which to

make medical decisions. It leads to a

greater maldistribution of resources, a misuse of those resources and an irrational and inequitable distribution of financial rewards. The Private Clinic is not a triviality

? it is a very real threat to the health of us all.

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6/FORTNIGHT

example, that officers of the Board were writing a planning document on

hospital services which was essentially a long term policy at the very time when they were supposed to be

surveying existing services in cons

ultation with local people. (Interest

ingly, when the Action Committee's

secretary told a Board official that the document had been made available to

the Committee, the official firstly went

into a panic over the leaking of a

confidential paper and later main tained that the paper was a discussion document and not a policy!)

Such about turns by publicly paid officials are not designed to reassure

the public, and they certainly didn't

give the Action Committee any reason

to have faith in the Northern Board.

Nor, for that matter, have the various

deceptions practised by the DHSS. The most unusual of these was the case of the non-existent meetings between the Northern and Eastern

Boards. Such meetings, Lord Melchett

assured an Action Committee picket line at the Valley Leisure Centre,

would examine the role of Whiteabbey

Hospital in relation to the Belfast

hospitals ? a logical area for study,

one would think, given the proximity and massive workload of those

hospitals. Yet when members of the

Action Committee made discreet

inquiries as to what was being discussed at these meetings they discovered that meetings had never

taken place and that no one even knew that they were supposed to take place!

Faced with such smokescreens, the Action Committee literally went

public. Meetings were held all over

Newtownabbey to inform people about the campaign and to strengthen

support. While these meetings received scant attention from the media,

despite the presence of consultants on

the platform, they did show the Action

Committee tha local people were

concerned about what was happening to Whiteabbey and the provided the

impetus for the recent trip to

Westminster. The repercussions of the West

minster lobby are still being examined

by those involved, but the crucial value

ofthe trip ? the fact that it was made

possible by money that came from all areas of Whiteabbey society

? has been recognised by the Committee

itself and by other community

campaigns. Whether or not the bureaucrats in

the DHSS take any notice remains to

be seen. My guess is that they won't

until Lord Melchett demands that

they do so. And Lord Melchett

remains intransigent as far as the Action Committee can discover. While this might seem odd for a minister who seems to want to personify open government, it is not as peculiar to those involved as the issue itself: as

Jimmy Reid, the Action Committee's chairman has said many times, 'Why do we have to fight for our health, of all things?'

So the fight goes on, and will do, until the planners learn a little about how their plans affect people below

them. Evidence that they still have much to learn comes from a Northern Board pamphlet which Hospital employees found in their last pay

packet: nobody will lose their job through reorganisation, it argued, they will simply be redeployed

? to Antrim.

(The views expressed above are

personal and are not intended as a

statement of Action Committee

policy.)

NOTES BELFAST FRIENDS OF THE EARTH Friends of the Earth (FOE), one of the

largest environmental lobby groups in the world, has recently formed two

branches in Ireland. The Dublin branch which had been somewhat

quiet of late, has reorganised to lead

opposition to the Irish government's proposals to site a nuclear power station at Carnsore Point in Co

Wexford. The Minister concerned, Des O'Malley, seems set simply to announce the decision, and recently refused to meet representatives of

Wexford Co Council to discuss the matter. It is worth noting that Sweden has decided against using nuclear

power as a cornerstone of its energy

policy, and that the government of West Germany has given an

undertaking to its citizens that it will not build any more nuclear power stations until the problem of waste

storage has been satisfactorily solved. Concern at the Dublin govern

ment's proposals, and the complete absence of any contribution from Northern Ireland to the Windscale

inquiry led a number of people to

speculate on whether a Branch of FOE couldn't be formed in Belfast. Thirty people, including a Belfast City Councillor, the vice principal of a

secondary school, and a lecturer from the Polytech turned out to the first

meeting, and decision was taken to

form a Belfast Branch of FOE.

While the implications of the

nuclear debate are so enormous that it

may tend to dominate other problems, a number of local issues were

identified. Among these were the

continuing inactivity of the Board of

Trade in the face of the oil leak at

Rathlin Island, the threatened

destruction of Belvoir Forest by a

road, the exclusion of NI from recent

British legislation to protect wildlife, and the continued pollution of the

I

Lagan and Lough Neagh by sewage. This last problem may have as its key the fact that the Department of the

Environment, the main polluter of

these waterways, is also the agency

responsible for enforcing the laws on

pollution. The evidence of the Isle of Man

government to the Windscale Inquiry was also noted, viz, that the

concentration of Plutonium 239 and

240 in the sea near the Windscale

discharge pipe is 26 times higher than

in the waters of the Pacific Island

Entwetak, used by the United States

for testing nuclear weapons. This

island has been evacutated for 26

years.

On the international scene FOE have made valuable contributions towards improving the quality of the

environment. In Australia, FOE has

been active in opposing the mining and exporting of Uranium, and in

trying to save the natural stands of the forest. In the USA Friends of the Earth succeeded in saving the Grand

Canyon from being flooded. In Britain

FOE have had a number of successes

including the introduction of bills to

protect wildlife, and a ban on the

importation of whale products. They have led the debate on recycling and

packaging, and were the largest

opposition group at Windscale.

The foundation of a Belfast branch

of FOE offers local people the chance

to exert an influence on the

development of the city, and to extend a helping hand to those in the South

who are calling for a public inquiry into O'Malley's proposals and for a

full debate on energy policy. Interested people can ring Derek

Alcorn, the Belfast coordinator, at

31950, or come to the next meeting in

the Queen's University Presbyterian Centre at 8.00pm on Tuesday 11th

April.

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