FOLLOWING this morning’s meeting about the future of the angiogram service at Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, Charlie McConalogue has confirmed that the service will continue.
The service, which has until now been run by an independent private operator that travelled to the hospital weekly, will now be run by LUH directly.
This confirmation comes after the announcement that the service would no longer be run by the mobile unit. Minister McConalogue said he has been in contact with his colleague Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly and leadership in LUH and the Saolta Group to make sure that Donegal would not be left without angiogram services from the 1st July 2022.
Commenting on the announcement, the Minister said “It is crucially important for the people of Donegal that an angiogram service is provided at Letterkenny University Hospital. I am happy to confirm that following discussions, the service will continue to be available in LUH. Over the last number of weeks there has been significant engagement between Saolta and LUH to assess the capacity of the hospital to provide the angiogram service by the hospital itself.”
He continued “I am grateful to the support and engagement from my Cabinet colleague Minister Donnelly on this issue. That fact that the service will now be offered in Letterkenny hospital is a testament to the quality of the cardiology services and staff of the hospital and is a result of the foresight and work of hospital staff and management working closely with the Friends of Letterkenny Hospital charity who invested in and provided equipment in recent years which ensured the new Radiology unit was in place. That infrastructure is now what enables the angiogram service to be provided in house. Thank you to Cllrs Ciaran Brogan and Gerry Crawford for their tireless work on highlighting this issue and for ensuring that this issue was raised through the regional health forum. It is crucial that any service that can be provided locally is provided locally and this result is an example of Letterkenny hospital looking to provide all services possible Donegal and the North West Region. ”
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