Cobh Hospital Meeting: Standing Room Only

It was a case of standing room only as an estimated 400 people ventured to Cobh Community Centre on a sunny Monday evening to hear why funding is on the verge of being withdrawn which could force the closure of Cobh Hospital with the loss of jobs and more importantly the loss of care for many sick and elderly people.

At 8.00pm sharp Chairman of the Friends of Cobh Hospital Mr. Toddy Stafford opened the meeting and explained to the onlooking crowd the problems our hospital is now facing. The meeting which was chaired by Mr. Pat Humphreys who was joined at the top table on the night by Ms. Angela O Meara and representatives of the Cobh Hospital board of management Dr. Peter Morehan and Dr. George Fitzgerald.
Amongst the large crowd were representatives from Dáil Éireann in the shape of Dep. Michael Ahern (FF), Dep. David Stanton (FG) and Dep. Sean Sherlock (Labour). During the course of the meeting each deputy pledged their support to the cause and vowed to fight for Cobh’s plight in the Dáil even if it meant working together across the political divide.

All Cobh Council members plus our two County Councillors were in attendance and just hours after taking the chain of office, newly elected Mayor Of Cobh Finbarr O’Driscoll gave a rousing speech to the appreciative crowd. His speech was all the more impressive when you consider Mayor O’Driscoll was not on the original agenda and only stepped in at extremely short notice as the invited Health Service Executive representative failed to attend to the dismay of the crowd who voiced their anger at the lack of attendance of the HSE official when the floor was opened and of course there were kind words saved for the ‘ever popular’ Minister for Health Mary Harney who was kindly invited to resign by one member of the audience!

On numerous occasions the floor was open to the crowd where those in attendance heard from current staff, ex-staff, ex-patients and concerned family members of the importance of Cobh Hospital to the community and how important it is that we as a community work hard to keep it s status and not have it downgraded. At the end of the meeting it was announced that a plan of action committee will be set up to help deal with the situation.

Article by James O’Donoghue for Cobh Edition