McGrath says Executive must take responsibility for health service crisis
SDLP Opposition Health Spokesperson Colin McGrath, a South Down MLA, has said the whole Executive must take responsibility for the current crisis within the health service.
He was speaking ahead of an emergency Stormont Health Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Mr McGrath said the Executive and Health Minister had ignored repeated warnings from those within the health service.
South Down MLA Mr McGrath added: “The emergency meeting of the Health Committee is all well and good, but I would ask the Executive parties how this meeting will help those currently waiting hours in an emergency department.
“What we really need to see is Executive Ministers around the table to sort this mess out.
“We are in this position now because the Executive and the Health Minister did not heed warnings from those within our health service that we were facing the most difficult winter yet. Â
“The Health Minister’s own winter preparedness plan didn’t even arrive until November and was decried by many as ‘too little, too late’.
“Instead of reacting to that, the Executive sat on their hands and walked straight into the very situation they were warned about.
“Executive parties then spent the festive period point scoring from the sidelines, instead of working together to produce emergency interventions that may alleviate the current crisis.
“Ultimately, it is the Executive parties’ failure to seriously implement the much-needed health service transformation that has left us in this position and unless they begin this process we will find ourselves in the same crisis again next year.
“Having seen their performance in 2024, it’s hard to have confidence that the new year will bring the change we need within our health service and until that happens patients and staff will continue to be failed.“
