Debate contribution: Health Crisis

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 3 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

3 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Health Crisis

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4774533

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It is abundantly clear that our health and social care system is in crisis. For the past decade, waiting lists for an initial outpatient appointment have risen by more than 200%, which is totally unacceptable. Our waiting lists are by far the worst on these islands. Compared with England, in the North, we wait seven times longer for hospital care. The morale of health and social care workers has plummeted almost as low as their pay in real terms. At the same time, attacks on healthcare workers have risen. Since the Assembly was restored last year, we have debated ambulance waiting times, delays to the maternity and children's hospital, social care reform, mental health provision, funding for health transformation and much more. To be frank, all that talk has not made a bit of difference. In fact, a year on from the Executive's restoration, the crisis facing our health service has only got worse. It is undeniable that something needs to change. First and foremost, we need investment in our health and social care workers, who should be paid a decent wage and be employed under good terms and conditions. We also need to listen to those who are working on the front line when proposals for change are being developed. They are the experts, but engagement with workers is, too often, nothing more than a tick-box exercise. Any plans for reform that see a growing role for privatisation should be explicitly rejected. Outsourcing health and social care to the private sector is astonishingly poor value for money, yet some parties are content to pump millions each year into the private sector in the hope that multimillion-pound companies somehow have a sincere interest, which is not motivated by profit maximisation, in solving our waiting list crisis. The amendment calls on the Minister to:

"take difficult decisions about reconfiguration of services".

Too often, that is simply code for the closure of local services. For that reason, I will oppose the amendment. People should protest against those forms of service reconfiguration. Shutting down maternity units, minor injuries units and urgent care centres before clear and safe alternatives are put in place shows a complete lack of care for the communities that work in and use those services. Finally, the small but growing private healthcare sector in the North is a massive red flag for where the crisis is headed. Between 2019 and 2023, private hospital admissions in the North more than tripled. Those who have the means to pay out of their pocket or through private insurance plans are fast-tracking their way to treatment. Those who cannot afford to go private languish on waiting lists whilst their conditions worsen, and many will die waiting for treatment. The health crisis has a real human cost, and that cost is death and disease, especially for those who do not have the wealth and privilege to pay for private care.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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