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The resignation of the Health Minister has been described as predictable by the Workers Party representative for Newry and Armagh, who has pointed to ongoing concerns over the future of Daisy Hill Hospital. Nicola Grant said the Department of Health's approach to reconfiguring health and social care services, along with a lack of transparency, had led directly to the current situation.
Speaking after the resignation Grant said "What is happening is because of the fixation the Department of Health has with the reconfiguration of our health and social care services, and the total lack of transparency". She said the Workers Party had warned in its submissions to consultation documents that a lack of buy-in from patients and service users was galvanising the public in each of the affected areas to protest and organise against proposals to remove emergency surgery and other services from local hospitals.
Grant highlighted the campaign at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry, where the SOS Daisy Hill committee is challenging the proposed downgrade of the hospital and the removal of other facilities which provide essential services for rural communities. She said the lack of meaningful discussion with communities was "an outrage" adding that the public meeting held to discuss the impact of the changes on the hospital did not take place in Newry "yet another reminder that service users and patients and their family's opinions don't really count." she said.
The Workers Party said the piecemeal approach taken by those involved in advancing the restructuring of services was once again leading to widespread confusion and uncertainty. Grant said the party had seen this happen with all the earlier transformations of health and social care services, and that each one had ended up making the service worse.
She said that despite the money spent on the private sector to address waiting lists, the region still has the highest and longest waiting lists in the UK, and that politicians and senior managers continue making the same mistakes by repeating approaches that have not worked before and will not work now. Grant said those pursuing the changes appeared "tone deaf" to opposition across the trusts, arguing that no evidence had been produced to show the changes would improve the quality of healthcare, and that the impact on patients, staff, ambulance provision, public transport and other infrastructure had not been properly considered.
Grant said the proposals were being organised around vested interests at Trust, department and political leadership level, describing them as "purely a money saving exercise which is balancing the books on the backs of staff and service users."
The Workers Party said it would stand with those campaigning to protect the health service, and called for a new minister and a new, transparent approach to delivering healthcare and addressing health inequalities in working class areas. The party said it wanted a cross-cutting approach involving patients, trade unions, local communities and political parties, with candour, transparency and a return to the founding principles of the health service, including free access at the point of use and patients' interests being placed ahead of the convenience of medical staff or management.
