Sinn Féin Spokesperson for Health Deputy Louise O’Reilly, will this week visit Donegal as part of a serious of formal engagements.
The visit will see her, together with local Sinn Féin party colleagues, meet with a number of patient advocacy and lobby groups, as well as health care providers, to discuss health policy and service provision here in the northwest.
Speaking ahead of her visit this Friday (17th February), Teachta O’Reilly said “I very much look forward to visting Donegal this Friday where, together with party colleagues Deputy Pearse Doherty, Senator Pádraig MacLochlainn and Cllr Gerry McMonagle, I will meet with a number of advocacy and interest groups, as well as service providers, to hear directly from them and to discuss issues relating to health policy, as well as the many challenges which patients in the northwest face in terms of accessing services.
“Here in Donegal, like in other areas right across the state, patients are often forced to endure a health system which is in a state of perpetual crisis – a situation which has come about as a direct result of the disastrous policy decisions made by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments.
“In recent months, the true extent of those failings have become apparent for all to see with their repercussions being played out right across the entire acute public hospital system, from continuous overcrowding in Emergency Departments and bed shortages, to the horrendous waiting list backlog which sees patient face what, in many instances, feels like an almost never ending wait to receive lifesaving treatments.
“Similarly, services in Donegal are also not immune to the many pressures which continue to plunge the health system into chaos.
“The county’s largest acute public hospital, Letterkenny University Hospital, is the seventh largest in the state, and yet it has for years now been starved of resources and has suffered due to chronic under investment.
“This is something which is reflected in the latest hospital data, where last year alone over 2,000 people spent time on trolleys and chairs at Letterkenny’s Emergency Department, where the full capacity protocol was initiated more than 100 times during the same period, and where last year there were over 7,000 outpatient cancellations.”
She added that in spite of these appalling figures, Sinn Féin has been to the fore in calling for a major change in health policy and in how our health service is run.
“This is why our party has consistently prioritised health spending in our alternative budget proposals each year, and we have outlined our own vision for the health service in Sinn Féin’s policy document ‘Better4Health’, a fully costed and credible plan in which we detail how we can deliver a world class universal health care system, based on need and free at the point of delivery.
“Sinn Féin is committed to the establishment of an Irish National Health Service, free at the point of delivery and where patients are treated on the basis of medical need and nothing else.
“We strongly believe that it is necessary to legislate to place a duty on the Minister to provide services throughout Ireland. That is the only way to overcome the fragmentation, imbalance and inequity in resources. The engagement we are embarking upon is part of a process to highlight to people the system that they should be demanding of their elected representatives, that puts their health firmly at the centre of health deliberations, irrespective of income.
“During my visit to Donegal this Friday, I look forward to meeting with all the various advocacy groups and health care stakeholders from throughout the northwest, and to working with them to progress a new vision for the Irish health service, namely on the need for an Irish National Health Service, and the shared aim of delivering a health service which is fit for purpose and which produces better patient outcomes for all.”
