This comes in the wake of local outcry from residents and campaigners who have been fighting to save Prince Philip Hospital’s services including the MIU for nearly a decade. The health board has subsequently been accused of jeopardising the safety of the people of Llanelli.
Hywel Dda University Health Board (HDUHB) is pressing ahead with plans to shut the MIU unit for six months between 8pm and 8am from November 1, stating it will not rethink the decision.
Hywel Dda says the unit is unsafe and faces growing challenges to its operational standards. Some of the reasons for the closure include difficulties recruiting doctors, soaring stress levels among the Emergency Nurse Practitioners – resulting in excessive sickness – and people presenting at the unit with serious injuries or life-threatening conditions.
Campaign group Save Our Services Prince Philip Action Network (SOSPPAN), which is a non-political, community led action group, argues that the health board has mismanaged the unit and its decision will put lives at risk.
‘The health board promised when it got rid of the accident and emergency service (A&E) at the hospital that the MIU would be manned around-the-clock,” said SOSPPAN chair cllr Deryk Cundy.
”It is now going to put the safety of the community in jeopardy by breaking that promise. It is outrageous that the board has taken this decision in the name of safety.
“What about the safety of the people of Llanelli? That should be its top priority. We fear a result of this decision that lives may be lost.”
People suffering from serious – potentially life-threatening – conditions including Sepsis, Asthma and Heart Failure would face journeys to Carmarthen’s Glangwili Hospital, which is 24 miles away, and Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, which is 11 miles away.
In the year leading up to the end of September in excess of 6,000 people used the minor injuries unit during the night hours. Campaigners say the figures prove the pressing need for the service.
Cllr Cundy said: “We know that Morriston and Glangwili Hospital’s accident and emergency services are creaking at the seams without the extra demand the extra patients will place on them.”
There are now doubts over whether the ambulance service and Dyfed-Powys Police, who often ferry patients at night to the MIU could cope with the extra demand.
SOSPPAN vice-chair, cllr Suzy Curry, said: “The cutback to daytime hours has caused huge fear and concern in Llanelli. It has been done without consultation and people genuinely are in fear for their lives and those of their loved ones.
“It is totally unacceptable that the people of Llanelli are being treated as second class citizens by the health board. The blame for this lies at their door.
“The staff are great, doing a great job in difficult circumstances, the problem is with the management and the health board.”
SOSPPAN’s protest petition, which urges the health board to make a U-turn on its decision, has amassed more than 10,000 signatures in a matter of weeks.
Campaigners have camped outside the unit around-the-clock, in all weathers, since the controversial decision was taken to close the MIU overnight.
Llanelli’s MP Nia Griffith, MS Lee Waters, MIND branch and the Chamber of Trade and Commerce have all voiced strong objections to the downgrading.
Llanelli MS Lee Waters has written to the chair of Hywel Dda University Health Board Neil Wooding calling on it to reconsider its decision.
“It is not too late to show that you are listening,” wrote Mr Waters.
“The strength of feeling at the loss of overnight medical cover for such a large and needy population is striking, and as public servants we surely must all take note of that and recommit to finding a way through that meets local needs.
“I would like again to ask you to reconsider your decision, and to make extra efforts to find one GP a night to cover the MIU to enable it to remain open.
“If you double down in the face of such opposition you are surely building up a problem elsewhere in the system, most notably in the already overstretched A&E departments at both Glangwili and Morriston. I do not see how this makes sense?”
Llanelli MP Dame Nia Griffith, who has joined protesters outside Prince Philip Hospital in the last three weeks, urged people to make their views known at a special drop-in event with Minor Injuries Unit staff at the Antioch Centre in Copperworks Road between 2pm and 7pm today. (WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23)
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