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A protest against the closure of Roscommon A&E outside government buildings this week. Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
Roscommon
Roscommon A&E closure led to 200km round trip for elderly patient
The daughters of John Bligh have told how the journey left their father frail and them fearing the worst.
MAYO GENERAL HOSPITAL was unable to access to the medical records of an elderly man who was forced to endure a 200 kilometre round-trip from his normal facility at Roscommon General Hospital where the accident and emergency had closed just hours earlier.
The Irish Daily Mail reports the case of John Bligh, 83, who was the first patient to bypass the A&E unit at Roscommon after it closed on Monday morning. He was transferred to Mayo General in Castlebar for vital treatment for his heart condition but when the hospital was unable to access his records he was brought back to Roscommon hours later.
The paper says Bligh’s two daughters “feared the worst” for their frail father during a long and bumpy 90-minute trip to Castlebar and added that the two journeys had had a huge effect on their father.
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