Jo-Anne Dobson MLA – Health spokesperson
Speech at the Ulster Unionist Party Conference
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Conference, colleagues, friends – It’s an absolute pleasure to be with you all here today.
And what a year it’s been for us!
Recently I was honoured to be asked to become our new health spokesperson.
And I would pay particular tribute to my predecessor Roy Beggs and also to my new colleague on the Committee, our former Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey.
Our NHS is something which this Party cares passionately about, and, like so many others, my family owes it an enormous debt of gratitude.
Some of you will know about my own connection to health before I was elected to the Assembly, but many of you will not.
My husband and I have two sons - Elliott and Mark.
When he was only five weeks’ old, our youngest, Mark was diagnosed with kidney problems.
His illness meant that the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children became our second home.
Not long after he turned 13, we were given the news that his kidneys were rapidly shutting down and that he would require a transplant to save his life.
We saw our son slipping away, And we were totally helpless
But eventually we got the call that was to give us back our son.
A family, who we will never know, made the decision to donate their loved ones organs.
While we were given hope, another family was grieving.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that organ donation is not only about giving people a second chance,
It’s also a way for people to leave a lasting and living legacy.
It’s one of the most selfless acts anyone could ever decide they wish to do.
And that is why I am proud to be a champion for and to lead the organ donation cause at Stormont.
So now you have my story – but I am sure that in this hall there are many many more.
Our health service touches every family and every home.
Miracles can happen in our hospitals every single day.
Our committed health service staff deal with life’s journey from the first breath of new life and sadly until the last.
However, 66 years on from its establishment our NHS is being put to the test like never before.
We can be proud of its backbone, an incredibly skilful and dedicated workforce.
But colleagues, I’m sorry to say things are not well with our local system.
As part of my role I speak to patients, to doctors and to nurses and they’re all telling me the same thing - the system is facing challenges on a scale like never before.
The pressures they are under are stretching patient care to breaking point.
The A&E at the Royal can’t treat two thirds of patients within its own timescales.
However that was in the summer, one of the quietest periods of the year.
The real worry should be what this means with winter pressures just around the corner.
The alarm bells will be ringing.
Edwin Poots turned a deaf ear to them – let’s hope Jim Wells doesn’t!
Of course other hospitals are facing the exact same pressures – Antrim, Causeway, even Craigavon Area Hospital in my own constituency.
It’s clear that we no longer just have a winter crisis, but a spring, summer and autumn one as well.
Waiting times for procedures such as hip replacements and cataract operations are spiralling.
I’m sorry, the NHS which I grew up to know wouldn’t consciously leave a pensioner in need of a new hip hobbling about at home in agony while it concentrates on filling gaps in its budget.
Conference, there really is a crisis at the heart of our health service.
(Pause)
On Tuesday I tabled a debate at Stormont on the issue of children's cardiac heart surgery heading away from Belfast and down to Dublin.
The minister had hardly risen to his feet to respond to my debate when he said and I quote him directly "we need to look at some cold, hard statistics."
That is NO way to discuss the care of the most vulnerable children in our society.
Children with heart defects, children like Evan Swann, Grace McKee and Lewis Greenaway, to name but only three!
And if I can make a plea from this podium today to the new health Minister Mr Wells - let’s not just look at those cold, hard statistics.
I would urge him instead to honour the £1m for paediatric cardiology services which was promised last year.
Let’s adopt a caring attitude towards all of the people, young and old alike, who rely on our health service every single day.
And like standing shoulder to shoulder with mothers and fathers fighting for their children, I and my party colleagues at Stormont have been fighting for equal access to cancer and drugs.
It frankly amazes me why both DUP Health Ministers would reject an industry offer to fund 40 new cancer drugs which are available to patients in England and Scotland, but NOT in Northern Ireland.
And perhaps more frightening still I am working on behalf of constituents at the moment who are unable to get access to cancer drugs already approved and previously available to them.
Conference, they are paying for these drugs themselves.
Watching their life savings and their children’s inheritance disappear as they pay for life-enhancing and life-extending drugs.
And they are the lucky ones, not everyone has the ability to pay.
But perhaps worse still they are left fighting the Health Service in what could be the final months of their lives.
These are difficult cases but I am proud to stand with these people and their families.
And after all this we have the reaction of the former Minister when he was challenged about what was happening in the Health Service.
Anyone with the most basic foresight could have looked at the finances and realised they simply didn’t add up.
But no, Edwin Poots, in usual obstructive manner refused to accept what a growing chorus of people were saying.
To use the words of Peter Robinson – he had the strategic vision of a lemming!
By leaving it to the last minute to speak out he left it too late to receive all the funds he and his officials said they urgently needed.
Even though the Health Department recently got an extra £80m, public confidence in the service has been severely damaged by the DUP’s mismanagement of our NHS.
Public confidence that the health service will be there for us in times of need, that when we dial 999 an ambulance will be on its way.
And no, not for one moment do I think all the problems facing it are easy to resolve.
But there are things that could be done to make a direct improvement.
For instance I regularly hear through the cases in my office that patients are being moved from pillar to post, and getting buried under a mountain of letters and paperwork.
And much of it is old fashioned pen and paper, you’d almost think we’re still stuck in time.
Technology is there to be harnessed and our Health Service has a long way to go to modernise and improve its efficiency.
There are also major issues with having the right staff in the right places –
Failures which have caused reduced opening hours at the A&E in the Downe and Lagan Valley Hospitals and also when the Ambulance Service lost almost a third of its capacity in July.
The signs of staffing strains are there in hospitals across Northern Ireland.
But if they are not resolved the care which patients receive, and indeed their lives can be put at risk.
The Minister needs to urgently review the entire training and recruitment policies.
Colleagues, this party set the ball rolling on slashing administration in our health service.
Michael McGimpsey set the standard and it is for others to follow his efficiency drive.
That is why the weeks, months and years ahead will be crucial for the NHS.
There will be many challenges – but none which another Ulster Unionist Health Minister could not overcome.
As a mother I know how the Health Service saved by son,
As a campaigner I know that Health Service can save more lives through modernising outdated laws and driving forward efficiencies.
As a politician I know too well which party has plunged our NHS into the deepest crisis of its 66 year history!
And I think you do too!
The party who use the economics of Wonga to fund our Executive.
In conclusion colleagues,
Despite all the problems the service is facing, I still trust it.
Because I trust the people who dedicate so much of their lives working with the most vulnerable people in our society,
The love and dedicated care of our medical experts must never ever be taken for granted.
That love saves lives and comforts families,
It makes miracles happen in our hospitals
You have heard what the NHS means to me and my family,
In just a moment I will introduce three outstanding health champions who will speak on their own experience of our Health Service.
Thank you.