Community care must be central to Winter Initiative – Kelly
The HSE winter initiative finally unveiled by Minister Harris and the HSE will not fix the growing problems in our health service accordingly to the Labour Party health spokesperson Alan Kelly.
“The winter health initiative has been announced far too late by the HSE and will do little to address the severe overcrowding problem in many of our hospitals around the country. The delay in announcement by Minister Harris will only make things worse for patients and staff as we come into difficult winter months.
“There is a critical need to look at increasing the volume of home help hours. We have to ensure that community intervention teams can operate longer and consistently across the country. Our citizens deserve to be treated locally in their community instead of lying on hospital trolleys waiting to be treated.
“Labour is committed to addressing the causes behind these long waiting lists. Weak budgeting, insufficient capacity and staff must be tackled.