Family waiting on hospital letters without post a week

A LOCAL family who are awaiting a number of important hospital letters for appointments said it’s “incredibly worrying” after they did not receive post for five days, as the postal crisis rolls on.
Serious concerns have been raised across the county over the functioning of Royal Mail in Fermanagh, with many households only receiving letters and postal deliveries two days a week.
A number of calls have been made by local representatives to Royal Mail over the service issues, but it appears that many families are still going without postal deliveries for a long period of time.
“Some members of my family are awaiting hospital appointments,” an Enniskillen resident said.
“Last week, we received no letters. This has been happening for a few weeks now and it means that you’re constantly having to call and check with the hospital about the appointments.”
Other residents have contacted the ‘Herald over the fears of missing hospital appointment letters.
A Belcoo man recently said that after his postman was off for a week’s holidays, he returned with a full five-days of postal deliveries, which had not been delivered in his absence.
Among the mail was two hospital letters, one with an appointment date for Saturday. The delay in delivery left the resident with little time to arrange transport to the clinic meeting in Belfast.
Fermanagh employees at Royal Mail also contacted the newspaper over their fears for the jobs after the organisation said it was planning to scrap overtime, a decision they later backtracked on.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA, Jemma Dolan, raised the issue in Stormont recently.
“These [overtime] decision will have serious repercussions for my constituents across Fermanagh, particularly in more rural communities,” Ms Dolan said.
“These cuts threaten the reliability of postal deliveries with delays already being felt by families, businesses and the most vulnerable in our society.
“Many depend on the timely delivery of essential items such as medical appointments and social welfare correspondence. For elderly and those living in isolated areas, post is a critical lifeline.”
A local postman said that their workload is being affected by parcel and online deliveries.
“There’s packets and parcels coming back in with people unable to finish their duties,” they said.
“If there was work-to-rule, the amount of stuff that’s going to be coming back would be massive.”

Posted: 12:35 pm February 20, 2025