Hussey blasts ’scandalous waste’ in Health Funding
Reports in the regional press that the Department of Health in Northern Ireland has spent £13 million in the last nine years on external consultants were blasted by West Tyrone Ulster Unionist Assembly candidate Derek Hussey as “scandalous”.
In a statement, Mr Hussey said: “We in West Tyrone and our neighbours in South Tyrone and Magherafelt have seen what the Health Department can do at the flick of a pen when they decide to remove services from an area.
“Omagh has been decimated by years of neglect, the maternity unit was removed to Enniskillen, and, with stealth, the A&E Unit, Intensive care, pediatrics have been removed under the blanket heading of ’safety’.
“Yet, if a portion of these millions that have been wasted on consultants to advise on managerial issues – and including on one occasion to help find a guest speaker – had been spent on frontline issues the situation might well have been averted.
“When one looks in detail at the report and reads £6,251 spent on ‘providing a facilitator for the senior management workshop’, one wonders what the workshop involved. The Department’s priority should surely be facilitating health care for all of us through our frontline health professionals.”
Mr Hussey concluded: “No Minister can justify the removal of departmental resources to fund these junkets, and all funding of this nature must be kept under public scrutiny. If we had an effective Assembly such costs would be investigated both by the Health Committee and by the Public Accounts Committee.”