After long wait council sets up new health body

After long wait council sets up new health body

10 May 2017

NEWRY, Mourne and Down Council is to set up a dedicated health committee.

The move was rubber-stamped last week when politicians also agreed to work alongside local health campaigners in the drive to protect and enhance key hospital services across the district.

There was across-the-board political support for a proposal calling for the establishment of a health committee tabled by Downpatrick councillor John Trainor, the grandson of the late Sean L Quinn who persuaded the former Down Council to set up a similar group in the 1970s.

Politicians say they recognise the important role the new committee has to play in not only protecting services, but working alongside health administrators and holding them to account.

Councillor Trainor said politicians are acutely aware of the continuous threat to health provision in the area, arguing the creation of a new health committee will provide them with an opportunity to discuss these with the key decision makers.

“People locally are no strangers to seeing services being stripped away from underneath them,” he declared. “There are ever-growing threats to local health service provision with concerns around accessibility. Emergency department hours at the Downe Hospital have been reduced with people having to go to either the Royal Victoria in Belfast or the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald where they may have to wait for hours to be seen by over stretched medical staff.”

Councillor Trainor highlighted concerns around emergency ambulance cover, explaining temporary reductions in services at the Downe were implemented not for patient or financial reasons, but a lack of suitable staff. He said this is an issue that affects all hospitals.

Turning to the centralisation agenda, the Downpatrick councillor said taking services out of smaller hospitals and concentrating them in Belfast is not for the benefit of patients and is unacceptable.

He continued: “It is immoral to strip away lifeline services for so many people in this area, one that has a poor infrastructure, significant elderly population and many schools and sports clubs who require access to high quality health care.

“Elected representatives have a duty to serve the people of this district and this council needs to have a mechanism by which to hold health trusts to account over the decisions they have made.

We can work with these people in terms of community plans, but we also have a role to hold them to account.”

Councillor Trainor added: “People elected us to fight on their behalf and hospital campaigners also want us to hold decision makers to account and stand alongside them. This is what we must do.”

Councillor Declan McAteer said it is incumbent upon politicians to bring accountability closer to the people they represent, particularly during the “ongoing crisis in all facets of heath and social care.”

He continued: “When a crisis does develop, it would be most helpful to have health officials and those involved in health locally to come along and tell us what is really going on. A new health committee would have fantastic benefits for us and the overall health and welfare of the people of this area.”

Councillor Billy Walker said a council health committee is needed to “grill” those in charge of health and social care provision across a wide area which has two hospitals, the Downe and Daisy Hill, while councillor David Taylor said it is “vitally important” the local authority establishes the new committee “to hold decision makers to account.”

Councillor Davy Hyland said politicians could work alongside hospital administrators through the new committee which he hopes can be established as soon as possible, and councillor Patrick Brown said the new committee must be properly staffed and resourced to ensure it can effectively hold health trusts and decision makers to account.

Councillor Roisin Mulgrew urged health officials to be “up front with people” before they make changes to services. She said a new health committee provides a vehicle for “full engagement” with decision makers, warning decisions that affect hospitals should not be made behind closed doors.