‘Hospital waiting times must be urgently addressed’ – McKevitt | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

‘Hospital waiting times must be urgently addressed’ – McKevitt

SDLP South Down MLA Karen McKevitt has called for urgent action to address spiralling hospital surgery waiting times in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust area.

The incidents happened at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry

The incidents happened at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry

McKevitt was speaking after correspondence revealed a waiting time of over one year for some inpatient/daycase surgeries.

She said, “I was shocked to hear from the Southern Trust that surgery waiting times continue to spiral and that some patients are left to wait over a year for treatment.

“That situation is completely untenable and reflects the very serious difficulties facing our Health and Social Care system here.

“The SDLP has warned that the Transforming Your Care agenda, which was supposed to take pressure off the clinical environment and shift focus onto community based care, is underfunded and has no monitoring mechanism.

“The chaos at the centre of the overarching plan for the Health Service is clearly impacting on patient outcomes,” she insisted.

“I want to welcome that the Trust has prioritised cancer treatment and consultant-identified acute surgery. These cases rightly deserve urgent attention but overall waiting times need improvement.

“I will be speaking to my colleague and SDLP Health spokesperson Fearghal McKinney about this as a matter of urgency. I also intend to ask the Minister what action he is taking to address the situation.

McKevitt added, “People in need of medical or social care here should not have to wait months or years for treatment. I will continue to press for action.”

Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=51324

Posted by on Jun 9 2015. Filed under Community, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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