Mandate Official slams Minister for Health for ignoring the North West and claims Minister Harris is “out of his depth”
Thursday 2 February 2017Mandate Trade Union Divisional Organiser for the North and West Ciaran Campbell has slammed Health Minister’s non-attendance at yesterday’s Dail session where opposition questions were raised in respect of the current ongoing cancer care and chemotherapy provision in Donegal’s Letterkenny General Hospital.
Mr Campbell said, ‘If it isn’t bad enough that very sick patients are again being asked to travel huge distances at incredible inconvenience to them and their families due to the lack of a basic cancer care and treatment provision, but this current and dare I say previous governments prevailing attitudes to people on this matter in the North West beggars belief.
He added, “For a Health Minister not to even attend a Dail session knowing full well that questions on the current cancer care consultancy vacancy would arise is not alone downright insulting to the people of the North West but is inhumane in the extreme.”
He asked, “Does the Minister not think the people of the North West are worthy of his attention?”
Mr Campbell expressed the frustration of retail and bar workers in the North West.
“Mandate, through successive policy positions, has consistently supported the North West cause in this area. When for once it looked like people would experience the benefits of a long representative struggle by numerous groups and individuals, patients and families are not only rocked by the current situation but equally the incredible disregard to the matter by a Health Minister who is clearly out of his depth.
“The least the people of the North West deserved was for him to attend the Dail and answer the very serious questions posed by Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty who has been very proactive on the issue’,” concluded Mr Campbell.
