Four consultants take up new posts
Dr Gillian Rankin, director of acute services, second from left, and Mr Seamus O'Reilly, clinical director for emergency medicine, right, welcome new consultants, from left, Dr Paul Mc Garry, Mr Erskine Holmes, Dr Cathy Daly and Dr Gareth Hampton. INPT20-015
FOUR extra consultants have taken up posts in Craigavon Area Hospital’s Emergency Department, doubling the number of consultants in the unit.
Some of the staff joined the department in January while others only began work in recent weeks. They are Paul McGarry, Erskine Holmes, Cathy Daly and Gareth Hampton.
Seamus O’Reilly, clinical director for emergency medicine at Craigavon, welcomed the new consultants. “I am delighted that we have been able to recruit a number of very high calibre consultants who will contribute greatly to the care and treatment provided here,” he said.
“Craigavon’s Emergency Department is one of the busiest in Northern Ireland with nearly 80,000 people attending here last year. Our priority is to provide the quickest and most effective emergency treatment to those people who need it most.”
Dr Gillian Rankin, director of acute services at the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, added, “We are constantly aiming to ensure that the Emergency Department is operating in the most effective way possible and that’s why we have invested not only in additional staff but also in a range of new initiatives such as a new mini-laboratory, due to be completed soon, which will reduce the turnaround time for laboratory investigation by 50 per cent.”
Mr O’Reilly reminded the public that they can play a significant role in helping to ease the burden on busy emergency departments. “These new consultants and all staff in Emergency Departments are there to provide highly specialised treatment for people who are seriously ill or injured and need to be treated urgently,” he said.
“Too often, we find our time and resources taken up by people whose ailments are neither serious nor urgent. GPs (or GP Out of Hours), Minor Injuries Units and local pharmacists all provide non-emergency treatment in the community and I would urge people, where appropriate, to use those services instead.”
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Portadown
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North west
