‘Greater need for North-South healthcare co-operation’ – Brady

Newry and Armagh MP Mickey Brady raised the need for increased north-south co-operation on healthcare at a meeting of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement last week.

He made the comments to the southern Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, along with his party colleague Martin Ferris TD.

“North-South co-operation in health has significantly increased in recent years but more needs to be done,” he said.

“There needs to be a Strategic Framework for North-South co-operation rather than local and one-off schemes. Regular meetings need to take place and officials assigned to specifically enhance and deepen co-operation.

“I also raised the urgent need to ensure that there is an all-Ireland action plan on suicide prevention. Suicide is affecting communities all over this island and we need a robustly funded strategy to tackle this huge problem,” the local MP insisted.

“More specifically I raised the issue of cross-border use of Daisy Hill hospital through the reservation of beds in the Renal Unit and reciprocal agreements on Emergency Department usage.

“There is great potential for expansion in this area, which can only help to underline Daisy Hill’s sustainability as an acute hospital.

Brady added, “Unfortunately the DUP’s Minister for Health, Simon Hamilton, didn’t make time in his schedule to attend, so I couldn’t raise the need for greater co-operation with him, but I did give Minister Varadkar a northern perspective and the views of my constituents in Newry and Armagh.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Jun 1 2015. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry