Allister Highlights Minister's Responsibility When it Comes to A & E Crisis
27 March 2012
Below is the speech by TUV leader and North Antrim MLA Jim Allister in yesterday’s health debate.
“We have seen and heard of some quite unbelievable scenes at the casualty department in the Royal Victoria Hospital. Scenes have been described of people who need medical attention lying on trolleys for 34 hours and of someone dying on a trolley. It is hard to comprehend that that sort of scene occurs in this part of the world in the 21st century, yet, sadly and realistically, it does occur. There has to be accountability for that because that is what the public seeks. The public pay their taxes and rates. They look for services in return. When the public discover that they are getting that level of service — for which I do not at all blame staff, who are so stretched it is unbelievable — they ask why. They ask, “Where does the buck stop?”
“The buck stops in this House. It stops with the Minister. The failures of the Royal and Antrim Area Hospital are the failures of the Minister, because that is the way that accountable democracy works. This time last year, it may have seemed easy to some when the buck stopped on the Ulster Unionist Party Benches to my left. Everything was simple. Everything was easy. Now, they may be discovering that, when the buck stops on their Benches, it is not so easy. Suddenly, we hear in some of the speeches from the DUP Benches, which would have been very different this time last year.
“A year ago, they were telling us that there was so much jam that it was everywhere as far as the last Minister was concerned and that the health service did not need any more cash. The reality dose that has set in is very different indeed.
“Of course, today, it is everyone else’s fault. They just cannot stretch it back far enough to blame direct rule, so they blame the drunks. Of course too many drunks turn up at casualty departments, but they always did. That is not the reason why we are in the turmoil that we are in today. Then, they blame people for not going to their GP. That has been a perennial problem. Yes; it is good and necessary to tackle those issues, but do not just make excuses for failure.
“Anyone with a titter of wit would have known that, if you close a casualty department that has a throughput of 45,000 people a year, such as at the City Hospital, and put that burden on the two other hospitals in the city, inevitably, they would not be able to cope. My goodness, a Research and Information Service report that was done before the City Hospital’s casualty department closed told us exactly what the Minister has never seemed to realise; that if it were closed, it was likely to have a huge knock-on effect on the other A&E sites in the greater Belfast area. Indeed, so it has. It is, therefore, no surprise that closing the City Hospital’s casualty department “temporarily”, to use that euphemism, has created the huge knock-on effect that we have seen at the Royal Victoria Hospital.
“Of course, we then have waiting times that are utterly out of control. Figures for the debate show that, in Antrim Area Hospital, only 58% of patients are seen within four hours. We know from the media that many people are not seen within that time. Let us not blame the media for putting the focus on things that are wrong. In fact, many members of the public are grateful to the media for doing that.
“It might be uncomfortable for those who have to take the heat, and it might be desirable for them and their well-paid, multiple spin doctors to spin it out of existence. However, it is reality and it has to be faced, and the sooner the better.
“The problem is multifaceted. I received an answer from the Minister today about the downtime of ambulances delivering people to casualty departments. To my amazement, it emerges that that downtime — the time from when patients are delivered until the clinical staff take charge — is greater than 45 minutes for 30% of patients who are delivered to the Royal Victoria Hospital. Moreover, I am told by ambulance staff that, in some cases, that downtime can run to hours. Think of it, ambulances are marooned at a hospital, unable to go anywhere else, because they cannot hand over control of their patients to clinical staff. That is an issue that undoubtedly needs attention. What this all points to is that the Minister’s pursuit of the Compton review, with its crazed idea of reducing the number of hospitals that provide key acute services to five to seven, will visit the turmoil of the Antrim Area and the Royal Victoria hospitals right across this Province, particularly if the Minister is foolish enough to close the acute services at the Causeway Hospital.”
