<<Otherwise how could you be describing disclosing the known true reason
for action by the Board to the public who are served by it and paying
for it as "playing dirty"?>>
Good point!  I suppose the only answer is that we (GPs and public in that
particular campaign) took great care to keep it clean, honest and open.
Compared to us the board was playing dirty.  Taking more drastic (but still
legal) action such as parading outside homes of board members with little
coffins would have been judged by us as playing dirty.  I don't need to go
on do I?   Just  a difference in standards, is all.
Names?
Well, the area general manager, Tom Frawley, made the mistake of having a
friendly chat with the local MP and told him that they wanted to close the
Omagh maternity unit in order to beef up the Enniskillen unit and thereby
attract more long-term business to Enniskillen---said hospital being, well
not quite up to the same standard as Omagh.  The MP went public with this
admission, neither Frawley nor the Board ever issued a denial although the
same  MP later told me that they asked him to shut up about it.
Then the Director of Public Health told A.N.Other ( a person of immense
integrity who might just be reading this) that he wanted the Omagh unit
closed -----for exactly the same reasons. 
Perhaps not such an awful thing to do you might say but the board ran a
very high-profile "consultation" on this and swore blind that the decision
would be made on three criteria---accessibility,  quality of service and
long-term viability of the chosen unit(not of the hospital, but the unit.).
  They had already decided (without consultation) that one unit had to go. 
If one unit had to go then Omagh won hands down on the three criteria even
though the Public Health dept produced a document proving that they could
not work out simple distances between various towns and villages;  these
incorrect figures helped to counteract the "accessibility" argument for
Omagh.  I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately!
I won't go on because I would overload the server.  

Declan
"How can a man face such times and live?"


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%