Ulster Unionist leader, Steve Aiken OBE MLA, has said that Sammy Wilson`s attempts to undermine Northern Ireland`s Health Minister in the middle of a pandemic are pathetic.
Mr Aiken said:
“This is more of the same pathetic petty party-political point scoring from the DUP. Sammy Wilson attempting to undermine a unionist minister in the middle of a pandemic is hitting a new low, even for the DUP. It is clear that Sammy Wilson has won the DUP`s internal battles and is now pulling Arlene Foster`s strings.
“This is a man who was pictured on the London Underground not wearing a face covering and has regularly undermined public health messages. And his colleagues now ignore medical and scientific advice.
“As for his unfounded criticism of Robin Swann, it was the DUP which ran away from taking the Health portfolio in January. They ducked it twice. For an MP, Sammy Wilson is also very ill-informed. He should have read the Health Minister`s statement to the Assembly yesterday. The key issue facing the Health Service is staffing capacity. There are over 5000 vacancies across the Health and Social Care system and that`s a direct result of years of underfunding by the Executive. It`s a pity Sammy Wilson and his colleagues never did anything to resolve that instead of blundering about until the Executive collapsed.
“If Sammy Wilson wants to talk about damage to the Economy, he should speak to his DUP colleague, Economy Minister Diane Dodds who is presiding over a chaotic Covid Restrictions Business Support Scheme which has failed to deliver for the vast majority of businesses which have applied for it. Half a billion pounds are sitting in the Executive`s coffers and the DUP Economy Minister can`t get support to the businesses which are pleading for it.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
Robin Swann speaking in the Assembly on Monday 17 November 2020:
http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/report.aspx?&eveDate=2020/11/16&docID=315840
The key issue facing our health and social care service is staffing capacity. Let me be clear: our health service is our staff. Our latest published statistics demonstrate the scale of the problem. As of 30 June, this year, we carried more than 5,000 vacancies across the health and social care system. The largest numbers were vacancies in relation to nurses and midwives, with a total of 1,786 across the system. In addition to those vacancies, the system is experiencing a higher than normal rate of absence due to COVID-19. The latest available figures show that almost 1,900 staff are absent across the health and social care sector, ill with COVID-19 or self-isolating. That adds 2·6% to the absence rate across the system.
I have taken action to try to address that issue through the workforce appeal. The response, to date, has been positive, with more than 5,000 applications, of which more than 3,000 are from Health and Social Care (HSC) staff. I have also taken action to commission the critical care plan through the critical care network. That allows for the potential to flex up to 158 critical care beds through the use of our Nightingale facility at Belfast City Hospital. I have also commissioned an additional Nightingale facility on the Whiteabbey Hospital site. That will be an intermediate care facility that will provide up to 100 additional step-down beds. It will be operational on a phased basis in a matter of days.
The insinuation that not enough planning or preparation for future surges was undertaken is not correct; in fact, it is deeply unfair on our clinicians and HSC managers who produced the plans. During the first wave, our HSC system delivered 12,150 new outpatient consultations in April. There were 29,163 in October. In terms of inpatient or day-case procedures, 4,859 were delivered in April, compared with 13,301 in October. Similarly, there were 39,907 outpatient reviews in April compared with 56,071 in October. I could go on. Overall, there was over 73% more activity in October than April. That was because of our surge plans and rebuild plans.