UUP launch scathing attack on Health Minister

An Ulster Unionist assembly member has launched a scathing attack on the Health Minister Bairbre de Brún.

Strangford Assembly member Tom Hamilton labelled Ms de Brún as “a second rate Minister reducing Ulster’s hospitals to a Third World health service”.

Mr. Hamilton, who is a member of the Assembly’s Health Committee, said he would be demanding answers from the minister when the Assembly sits next Monday.

“Yet another new low has been reached,” Mr Hamilton said. “This Minister likes to blame the direct rule period for all our ills but that excuse is running a bit thin after she has personally been in office for three years.”

“Change is taking too long to come in health matters. The Minister needs to be more decisive, and if she can’t be, she should vacate her ministry so that someone else can get things done,” he added.

Mr Hamilton’s comments come in the wake of details released on Tuesday about how patients were waiting on chairs and trolleys at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald’s accident and emergency department.

Staff said a bed shortage reached crisis point on Monday night.

(AMcE)