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Wed 10th March
The proposal is to reduce cover from five to three medics, leaving only one GP to cover the Derry city and surrounding area.
Mark Durkan said: “People will be understandably alarmed by the cuts to Western Urgent Care out of hours service proposed to take effect in July.
“The ‘red eye’ service is an essential period of cover when many people are at their most vulnerable and when there is significant demand on all our response services.
“The community in Derry will be concerned that the plans would leave just one GP on duty for the whole city and the Limavady area, stretching towards Strabane also. This seems a very thin level of cover for the overnight period.
“I and my SDLP colleagues will be pressing the Trust on this issue. Not only is the proposal worrying of itself, there appears to be a dubious rationale given that there will presumably be an increased demand on ambulance services if an out of hours GP is unavailable.”
“When the other parties in the Assembly voted for this flawed budget, we said that the cuts being labeled ‘efficiency savings’ actually meant frontline service cuts and unfortunately this is another example of that coming to pass.
“There is a better way. It is time for a new Assembly budget and for a new approach on this issue from the Western Urgent Care.”
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