Dr Kieran Deeney: Hospital politics
A Co Tyrone doctor is trying to ditch partisan politics by running for election on the issue of health care. But how well can a single-issue candidate fare in the North? Suzanne Breen reports
Carrickmore isn't the sort of place where one expects rebellions against the sectarian nature of Northern Ireland politics. Deep in the heart of nationalist Co Tyrone, it normally likes its politicians to be of the strongest shade of green. Nothing else usually matters.
But here in the village health centre, Dr Kieran Deeney is trying to change that. He plans to stand for next month's Westminster election as an independent, in a desperate attempt to save the county's acute hospital services.
Single issue candidates have been successful at a parliamentary level in the Republic and Britain, but not in the North. Deeney hopes that feelings over medical care run so high in Co Tyrone that, for once, nationalists and unionists will abandon tribal voting patterns and support him.
It is a matter of life-and-death, he says, "This area is being turned into a health-care wasteland. Every single hospital in Co Tyrone has been closed or will be closed down. We must take urgent action to stop it."
Acute services have been withdrawn from the South Tyrone Hospital in Dungannon. Maternity, paediatric and intensive care services at Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh have also been stopped and the hospital itself will be shut by 2010, says Deeney.
Tyrone County Hospital's colossal efforts in dealing with the horrific injuries caused by the 1998 Omagh bomb, won international acclaim. Staff worked around-the-clock and, without their labour, the death toll could easily have been much higher.
Yet, according to Deeney, that's all been conveniently forgotten. "People feel betrayed," he says.
Women in labour and sick children in Co Tyrone must now often travel unreasonable distances to hospitals in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, or Craigavon, Co Armagh, he claims.
"Within recent weeks, I've had two women give birth at home while waiting to be brought to hospital. One delivered her baby on the bathroom floor after a two-hour wait. Her granny was so frightened, she was on her knees, praying to Padre Pio. She had to cut the umbilical cord. It's disgraceful that in 2005, there should be situations like that."
The GP argues that Co Tyrone has been left powerless to challenge the deterioration in its hospital provision because it falls into three constituencies – West Tyrone, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and Mid-Ulster – which all have abstentionist Sinn Féin MPs.
Deeney will be writing to Pat Doherty, his local MP in West Tyrone, asking that he stand aside for him in the forthcoming election. Sinn Fé in workers say this won't happen, so the GP is planning to run against him.
"I know Pat and it's nothing against him personally to say that Tyrone cannot continue to be left unrepresented in the House of Commons. Our voice must be heard in the place where decisions are taken.
"Political non-participation isn't an option. The situation is far too serious for that. Lives are at stake. If candidates aren't going to take their seats, I don't know why they stand in the first place.
"We need a representative at Westminster who can influence people, who will make all the arguments. We need an MP to tell the stories of the people in Tyrone who are suffering because of the loss of hospital services."
In 2002, the then Stormont Health Minister, Sinn Féin's Bairbre de Brun, chose Enniskillen over Omagh as the location for a new multi-million pound acute hospital. The decision was endorsed the following year by the British government. Omagh is to have only local care facilities.
Deeney, a GP in Carrickmore for 18 years, stood in the 2003 Assembly elections on the issue and topped the poll. But the ongoing political stalemate means the Assembly has never met, and the fall-out from the Northern Bank robbery makes the restoration of devolution unlikely this year.
The GP had hoped to make his case through a seat on the Assembly's Health Committee. Now, he says, he must take his arguments to Westminster. "They are very powerful ones. The population in Co Tyrone is 168,000, compared to 56,000 in Co Fermanagh.
"Enniskillen is on the periphery of Northern Ireland, Omagh is not. In terms of geography and population, it makes no sense to locate acute services in Enniskillen. There isn't any medical evidence to support it either."
The matter could have been addressed through an all-Ireland approach, he says. The British government wants everybody to be within an hour's journey of acute services. People in south and west Fermanagh are easily within this 'golden hour' of hospitals in Cavan and Sligo.
But up to 20,000 people in Co Tyrone will not be within an hour of the new hospital in Enniskillen, Deeney claims, "The lack of proper hospital services means we are having difficulty attracting doctors to work in Tyrone.
"They know the unavailability of machinery and hospital services could mean that lives, which might be saved elsewhere, could be lost here. Who wants to work in an area where that's the case?"
In the Westminster race, Alliance is standing aside for Deeney, the SDLP is expected to do so, and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is also keen to give him a free run. Sinn Fein is intent on standing. It says no single candidate has a monopoly on the hospital issue and it is committed to "meaningful" hospital services in Co Tyrone.
Even though Deeney topped the poll in the 2003 Assembly elections, he received only 15 per cent of the vote, compared to 39 per cent for Sinn Fein's three candidates.
But if the DUP (18 per cent), SDLP (15 per cent), and UUP (14 per cent) stood aside, he could win. The DUP is refusing. It claims that if it pulls out of West Tyrone to give another candidate the opportunity to defeat Sinn Fein, the same logic would apply to half a dozen other Westminster constituencies.
Its desire to remain the largest party in Northern Ireland in terms of votes, and not be overtaken by Sinn Féin, means that 7,000 votes in West Tyrone are rated as more important than Deeney's arguments.
Hospital campaigners in Omagh accuse the DUP of unbelievable selfishness. The party claims its withdrawal wouldn't guarantee the GP's success anyway. DUP voters might abstain regardless of what they're told to do, and the nationalist community could resent the other parties "ganging up" on Sinn Féin and come out in their droves for Pat Doherty.
The Assembly elections took place under PR. Next month's poll will be under the first-past-the-post system which militates against independents.
Without a DUP withdrawal, Deeney's chances are slim. He says he is formulating policies on unemployment, poverty and housing but will not tackle constitutional matters. No candidate in Northern Ireland in recent years has been successful at a Westminster election without taking a stance on the Border.
Deeney says he is inspired by the five independent health TDs - Dr Jerry Cowley (Mayo); Paudge Connolly (Cavan/Monaghan); Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central); Marian Harkin (Sligo/Leitrim) and James Breen (Clare).
He has also a good working relationship with Dr Richard Taylor MP, elected in the West Midlands on a platform of saving Kidderminster Hospital.
"It's time to bring this new dimension to Northern Ireland politics," says Deeney. "West Tyrone should send an MP to Westminster to take on the government, and fight passionately for the people and their hospitals."p