Workers Party release statement on closure of Fairhill Health Centre, Magherafelt

Hugh Scullion Workers Party Representative Mid Ulster has released the following statement on the closure of Fairhill Health Centre, Magherafelt.

"The Workers Party has been inundated with complaints following the closure of the GP Practice at Fairhill Health Centre. Patients are shocked and upset not only by the closure but at the way in which they were informed. Patients received notification through the post telling them that they were being allocated to other GPs across the Mid-Ulster area."

Hugh Scullion has described the dispersal of nearly 2,500 patients across eleven different Health Practices throughout Mid-Ulster as nothing short of scandalous. To treat citizens in this fashion, shows a lack of regard and respect for the rights of

patients to have a meaningful say in their choice of medical practitioners.

"For the Department of Health to claim this decision was taken was to ensure continuity of GPs services is laughable, and the manner in which patients were informed of the changes outrageous. Many of those patients affected will be older people with complex health needs and this notification by letter announcing such immediate and far-reaching changes will have a negative impact on their health and well-being."

Hugh continued "The Workers Party policy has always been that GPs and all other Medical Staff should be directly employed by the National Health Service. Scenarios like this are becoming increasingly frequent, patients have become commodities. This

behaviour and approach are unacceptable, and questions now need to be answered on,how this was allowed to happen? what methodology was used to inform the process of allocating patients to other practices? Was Medical Complexity, age, distance to travel, public transport availability all considered, or was it a random lottery."

Hugh concluded "Patients in the Mid-Ulster area deserve to be treated in a manner that allows them to make informed decisions about their health needs and requirements. It is now time for our politicians to ensure that primary care providers become direct employees of the NHS and can no longer pick and choose what areas they will practice.

"Patients should no longer be subject to the whims of private work for profit contractors. The Health Service was created to stamp out this practice and there should be no going back.

"In the meantime, the department of health has an obligation to ensure that patients affected have the appropriate level of care from those practices they have been shoehorned into. They should also be informed if they have the right to appeal the department’s decision on the allocation."

Hugh Scullion 07719384557