Hugh Scullion Workers Party Representative commenting on the Northern Health Trust’s statement that moving services from Causeway Hospital to Antrim Hospital is Safe Sustainable and appropriate said that has always been the rationale used for making cuts

Mr Scullion said the safe sustainable and appropriate arguments is one we have heard over many years and has been used to strip away local services to the detriment of patients and their families. Antrim Hospital cannot possibly cope with the extra patient numbers as they have the same underlying problems as all Northern Ireland hospitals. Bed shortages, staff shortages, blocked beds because of the lack of home care packages and the inability to discharge patients because of previous financial cut backs. This is simply more of the same.

The lack of ambulances and crews has not been given appropriate weight in the decision making process nor has access to public transport. The ambulance service is buckling under the pressure of additional demands and Translink is consulting on a whole raft of cut backs to their services. There is a serious lack of cross cutting departmental planning in all of these plans. But if we refer back to the consultation documents and there were many of them the need for hugh financial savings were imbedded in them all.

The health committee which has the responsibility for scrutinising all of these proposals must become more rigorous when interrogating the information placed before them by Trust experts and department officials. It is time to press the pause button and have an inclusive debate with patients service users trade unions and political parties. We should all be involved in the debate on preserving our national health service before it is privatised and fragmented out of existence. Put patients before vested interests.