Axe plan for South and East Belfast out of hours doctors: Council to oppose move amid fears patients will be forced to already overstretched Ulster Hospital A&E
The DUP has pushed a council to demand plans that would axe out of hours doctors from East and South Belfast are scrapped.
But they only did it with the support of two Nationalist parties, as Alliance came out strongly in favour of the idea.
Current proposals would see the Belfast Health Trust get rid of out of hours doctors services at Knockbreda Wellbeing and Treatment Centre in the Forestside area of the city.
The only other out of hours GP in Belfast covers the North and West of the city, located opposite the Mater Hospital on Crumlin Road.
The Trust has suggested that anyone needing out of hours care or prescriptions could travel from East or South Belfast to Crumlin Road to get the help they need.
Many locals find the idea ridiculous, not least as it would involve ill people in need travelling into and through the city centre.
Politicians suggest the most realistic upshot will be the Ulster Hospital’s already over-burdened Emergency Department will see a huge influx of patients – people who could easily be treated by an overnight GP, but will instead seek the closest help available.
That includes DUP councillor Brian Higginson, who brought the issue to Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council this week.
“This is a community issue,” he said. “It’s bad for the patients of East Belfast, South Belfast and Castlereagh South, all of whom rely on this service.
"Sick people don’t have the ability to drive from one side of the city to the other in the middle of the night, it stands to reason – and many of them don’t or can’t drive.”
Axing out of hours GP services, he fears, will send the Ulster Hospital’s waiting lists spiralling.
"People will go to the Emergency Department at the Ulster instead and it’s already stretched, we all know that,” Mr Higginson said.
"But that’s in a different health trust area; in my view, the impact of the Belfast Trust’s proposals won’t be felt by them, but by the South-Eastern Trust.”
When the DUP man brought the issue to Lisburn and Castlereagh Council floor, however, Alliance and UUP politicians refused to back his call to save out of hours GPs.
Alliance alderman Martin Gregg accused people opposed to the axe of being NIMBYs, arguing that all main parties agree the health system needs to be reformed.
"This is classic NIMBYism,” he said during a debate this week. “The public needs us to show leadership in terms of reform to our health service, arguably more than anything.
"Alliance is committed to this both in words and deeds.”
Mr Higginson’s call for the council to oppose the axe passed, but only because Sinn Fein and the SDLP backed the DUP move.
"It wound up being a cross-community vote that carried it,” he said, “which I’m glad of, it should be that way, but I’d hoped the council could speak with one voice instead of being split.
"And I don’t believe that getting rid of this service amounts to a proper reform of the health service.”
The Belfast Trust is currently running a public consultation on axing the out of hours GP service, arguing that it would be “more cost-effective and more efficient” to cover the entire city from a single facility.