Covid one year on: What does the future hold for hospitals?

A community representative who liaises with health chiefs says she is 'confident' the future of the Emergency Department at Daisy Hill hospital is secure.

The Accident and Emergency in Newry closed in March 2020 as part of the southern Trust's surge plans in response to the pandemic.

Staff were transferred to a non respiratory ED at Craigavon hospital, in a bid to keep Daisy Hill Covid-19 free.

Then in October, it became the first ED in the UK to re-open within months- all at a time when community transmission rates were high in the local area.

It is a small site with limited space and staff worked hard to restructure the department in line with social distancing guidelines.

The Emergency Department at Daisy Hill has been a topic of discussion since 2017.

Seana Grant is a Community Representative from the Daisy Hill Hospital Pathfinder group which works to liaise with the Trust and people in the surrounding area:

"The pathfinder group was set up to get community involvement more with healthcare decisions about provision of healthcare in the southern Trust, specifically in and around the area that Daisy Hill would service.

"Community Reps are part of a forum that the hospital management and clinical staff and governance of the hospital meet once a month to discuss any issues.

"Our role was basically to reassure the community that this was being taken on a strictly temporary basis which it was as we can see the department is now open.

"And to reassure people that you would still get a complete pathway of care in Craigavon and that not all care would be centered there so patients would be transferred back to Daisy Hill as well if it was appropriate."