Former health minister Jim Wells says timing of strike was 'cynical' and that patients of cancelled appointments now face 'agonising wait' for new ones

Mr Wells was DUP health minister in 2015 but has since left both the party and frontline politics.

He told the News Letter: “The first middle two weeks of January are notoriously the period when things become extremely stressed; I had experience of this in 2015.

"What basically happens is a pressure builds up over the Christmas period, people report to their doctors once they reopen, and the doctors immediately start referring people for hospital procedures and admission.

"Then add in of course all the usual flus and seasonal-related illnesses. Therefore, I have to say the unions couldn’t have chosen a worse time to make their point.

"It’s cynical timing, and it will undoubtedly cause a lot of problems to patients.

"At a time when, frankly, the health service is struggling already, why add to it?

"There will have been people who desperately needed a procedure today and won’t have it, and whose health will deteriorate as a result. We just have to accept that. I’m uneasy when that happens.

"All previous experience has shown that folk that would otherwise have got the procedure and been well on their way to the mend, unfortunately, have a further agonising wait ahead of them.”

He added that “we all have sympathy for health service staff who want a pay rise,” but that “it will definitely have an effect on people’s health, and I think the unions should have thought a wee bit longer before the choosing of the date.”

Asked if he was opposed to the strike, he said: “I believe they have a democratic right to withdraw their labour in a pay dispute.

"But I also believe they have to be wise when they choose to make their point, and it should be at a time when it has less of an impact on the innocent people here, who are the patients waiting for procedures.

"I find that very disappointing.”