I won’t forget the people who elected me saysnew Health Minister

NEWLY appointed Health Minister Edwin Poots has said that while his new job will be time consuming he still intends to represent local issues in Lagan Valley.

Speaking to the Star days after his appointment Mr Poots described his new job as a “huge challenge”. He said: “I anticipate it will be very time consuming but I still intend to maintain a local profile and represent local issues in the Lagan Valley area.”

Mr Poots said he was grateful for the opportunity to take on his new role in government and described it as “probably the most challenging department of any”.

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The DUP MLA, who has already served as minister in the Department of the Environment and the Department of Culture, Leisure and Arts, said: “The scale of my new role is potentially overwhelming but I intend to ensure that this is not the case.

“I will be focusing on dealing with matters at hand - issue by issue.”

Mr Poots accepted that locally challenges lie ahead regarding Lagan Valley Hospital but said that closure of the hospital “isn’t an option” and that there will be a role for the hospital. “33,000 people are using the Accident and emergency unit a year,” he explained.

He also spoke of the gradual run down of services at the local hospital over the past number of years.

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“A ‘Developing Better Services’ document was produced around 10 years ago, which identified a run down of the hospital. The outworkings of this have been seen recently with the loss of the obstetrics led maternity service which was replaced with a midwife led service and also the pressures that are now on the accident and emergency department. These are issues we will need to seek a resolution to in the interest of the public.”

Mr Poots said the issue of the Royal Colleges pulling out of local hospitals concerns him.

“I intend to speak to them to indicate that it’s not acceptable to announce overnight that they aren’t prepared to work in certain facilities resulting in huge pressures on other hospitals” he said.

In spite of the pressures, the minister believes the opportunity exists to fulfil expectations of the Health Service. He explained: “With a growing elderly population, high quality but expensive modern drugs are coming on the market and there is a public demand and expectation on the health service is ever more difficult to meet.

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“However I do believe there is an opportunity to do things differently and more efficiently to enable us in the future to fulfil some if not all expectations.”

He continued: “As a public representative I have come across a number of constituents keen to use new drugs for arthritis and cancer treatments. We have a whole spectrum of disability where people are not being as well served as they wish and if it was not for the support of family and volunteers their condition would be compounded further.

“There is also a range of people who currently require greater level of care at home to enable them to stay in their own homes as opposed to going in to nursing homes.”

Mr Poots spoke of his own personal dealings with the health Service including his disabled brother being transferred from Lagan Valley to the Royal hospital two years ago and the lengthy waiting time for a bed that ensued. This happened mid week and the family didn’t anticipate it would be so busy.

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“The main hospitals in Belfast are under huge pressure with emergencies” he said.

Mr Poots explained he would be trying to use the available resources better. “Four and a half billion is spent on health here and I suspect if we had twice that to spend we still wouldn’t be able to fulfil all expectations.

“Ultimately I am only a Minister because the I was elected by the People of Lagan Valley in the first instance. I feel it is absolutely vital that I retain that link with local communities on daily issues that affect them.”