Dont let lying HSE get away with it

At the start of the Summer, the HSE announced that Wexford General Hospital would lose a twenty five bed unit during the holiday season due to staff shortages. There was no doubt in any ones mind, bar those paranoid shinners, that the beds would be back, available to our sick when September came. Last week came the announcement that the beds are to remained closed until at least 2014, despite the fact that up to thirty two patients were regularly left on trolleys during the Summer months.
Downgrading by stealth?
Or are we still just paranoid shinners?

When the HSE announced their decision to remove the beds on a "temporary" basis three months ago, we voiced objection. We alone highlighted the HSE's promise and our hope that it wouldn't be forgotten through our network of rural and urban newsletters and through our facebook groups. We alone suggested that this was the beginning of the downgrading of Wexford General.
Paranoid shinners. Always negative. Always thinking the worst.
On this one, I really hate to say it. We were right.

Wexford General Hospital has lost twenty five beds. That's downgrading in our book. Doctor Colm Quigley said that he did not think that "people yet realised the full scale of the crisis".
Crisis? But Colm, you said the beds were only being closed for the Summer. You didn't mention crisis then. In fact, you played down any attempt to highlight one.
A HSE spokesman bizarrely went on to claim that the lose of the twenty five beds would "enable [the hospital] to improve the facilities for existing in-patients".
In a draconian move, the management of Wexford General have issued a written warning to all staff, threatening sanctions and possible sacking for anyone who speaks out about the crisis in the hospital.

There was me thinking that the HSE and the hospital were belong to, and funded by the Irish people! Turns out there a private business, who can sack staff for alerting the public to a rapidily deteriorating situation.
Does the HSE believe that by prolonging the stealth downgrading of our county hospital, the people of Wexford will grow tired of the subject and lose interest, allowing them to carrying out the cutting of Wexfords health services?
If they do, they're very much mistaken.

Even if every sane person in Wexford loses the run of themselves and turns their back on our vital hospital (which is extremely unlikely), there will still be one group left to protest and highlight the HSE's incompetence and lack of planning.
That's right, those old paranoid shinners.