Sinn Féin urges cross-border health integration to tackle waiting lists and workforce pressures

Sinn Féin North Antrim MLA Philip McGuigan

Philip McGuigan MLA has welcomed the launch of Sinn Féin’s latest health policy discussion paper, “The case for an Irish National Health and Care Service”, describing it as a timely and necessary intervention.

The Sinn Féin Assembly health spokesperson said the paper highlights a range of challenges facing the current healthcare systems north and south of the border and offers constructive proposals to transform and unify services across the island of Ireland.

“Successive Irish and British governments have not prioritised our public health services,” said McGuigan.

“They have failed to plan services according to need, to train and retain enough health and social care professionals, or to modernise health and care provision for the 21st century.”

Calls for an all-island approach

The discussion document argues that Ireland’s two-tier and partitioned health systems are increasingly unable to cope with growing population demands, warning that the population of the island—currently just over seven million—is expected to rise to eight million by 2050.

“The gap between public and private health care is growing in the south’s two-tier health service, despite the all-party commitment to Sláintecare. Little progress has been made towards realising that vision,” McGuigan said.

“Waiting times have also grown unacceptably long in the north, where the crisis is exacerbated by the financial control of Westminster and the impact of partition on our ability to make decisions that maximise the all-island potential.”

McGuigan added:

“These are just some of the pressures facing a partitioned economy and health care system. On an island this small, this division makes no sense.”

Key proposals

Among the paper’s central recommendations are:

• Detailed costings by the Shared Island Unit on integrating north-south health systems

• Joint health planning between Government Ministers North and South

• A unified hospital waiting list system for the whole island

• Aligned emergency services for greater training and operational capacity, especially in border areas

• A Rural Health Commission to deliver an all-island rural health strategy

McGuigan noted that while cooperation has increased since the Good Friday Agreement, true all-island planning and delivery remain rare.

“In 2017 the EU and the British government undertook an extensive mapping exercise to assess the level of cross-border cooperation. It identified over 20 health-related projects,” he said.

These included:

• The North West Cancer Centre

• The All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network

• Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT)

• Collaborative child protection workstreams

• Initiatives on health promotion, including alcohol and tobacco control

• Support from the Institute of Public Health in Ireland

A call to act

McGuigan concluded with a call for urgency and political leadership:

“An all-island national Health and Care Service will be to the advantage of all citizens on this island. The Executive and the Irish government have a responsibility to examine these matters as a priority.”

The full discussion paper is available on the Sinn Féin website: www.sinnfein.ie