Debate contribution: Maternity and Children’s Hospital: Delays

Debate contribution by Miss Nuala McAllister on 26 November 2024.

MLA

Miss Nuala McAllister

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

26 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Maternity and Children’s Hospital: Delays

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4677375

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion that my DUP colleague on the Health Committee has proposed. I will speak to a number of aspects of it. I will give most of my attention to the maternity and children's hospital, as the proposer did. First, I will highlight a few points. I do not want to politicise the motion. I am often critical of the Minister and decisions that he may or may not take in the Chamber or outside it, but, to be fair to him, I am a little frustrated by the wording of the motion, particularly because, when the children's hospital was announced, the DUP held the Health and Finance Ministries. We have had a lack of progress on a number of projects because of the merry-go-round of collapse and return of the Assembly and Stormont overall. It is important to take that issue into account, because, regardless of who holds the health portfolio, if we have stop-start government, we will not have true transformation of our health service. As my party's spokesperson on the Health Committee, I am willing to work with the Health Minister on transformation. I recognise that the reconfiguration framework is being consulted on, and we will respond to that. I understand the Minister's desire to avoid over-politicisation by not including a lot of detail on the reconfiguration. Unfortunately, however, when you do not include the detail, it is harder to bring people along with you, because they do not know what is happening. I recommend and ask that the Minister engage with those on the ground and in the hospitals, with allied health professionals (AHPs) and with representative bodies to put a bit more meat on the bones. I turn to the maternity hospital. I looked at the response to my Health Committee colleague's question for written answer on the water safety group. I was shocked and surprised to hear that conflicting evidence was given at the Health Committee. My party colleague and I support recalling the group to the Committee to hear the true facts of the matter. I share the concern reflected in the remarks about the review and who co-leads it, but I am not surprised, to be honest. Too often, when we have reviews in the health service, inevitably, the groups or even the individuals who were responsible for some element along the line sit on those reviews. We keep coming back to that issue, and there needs to be accountability, especially around structures and working with the boards of the individual trusts. We support calling those witnesses back to the Committee. I move to the maternity hospital. I have engaged with midwives, who have been excited about the hospital being handed over and are very much looking forward to the new building. Having the new building will boost staff morale. They are also disappointed, and, hopefully, we can see movement on that. We absolutely cannot, however, support the handover of any building where there is still pseudomonas. We support the Department in everything that it is doing to tackle that in the first instance. My colleague and I visited the children's hospital, primarily the emergency department team. We noted some aspects that struck us. It relies on charitable funds, which get consumed by the Belfast Trust. One charitable fund relates to the use of a facility that includes a room into which parents can be brought to receive the most devastating news that their child did not make it. Having to rely on charitable funds for that is a disgrace. Also, I have stayed in hospital with my child a number of times over the past few years, and it is often pot luck whether relatives are able to stay with their loved ones. We expect children who stay in hospital for quite some time to live there, but the facilities are just not up to scratch. They are young people, and we need to ensure that there are smiles on their faces while they undergo some of the most intensive treatment in their hospital experiences. Yesterday, I attended the NI HealthTech Leaders' Forum event. One thing that came out of it that is relevant to the motion was investment in health. We need to invest in health and look at it not as a cost but as an investment. The more we invest in health, the more we can transform the lives of everyone who does not need to reach that hospital stage. When, however, patients reach that hospital stage, we need to have the service —

— and the staff to facilitate them.

765 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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