Louth Workers’ Party representative Peter Short has called on the government to pay heed to the recommendations in a report published today (Monday) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which urged the HSE to consider a combination of a general hospital and a regional hospital for the North East region while stressing that replacement primary care teams needed to be put in place before proceeding with planned reorganisation in the region.

Mr. Short said that the OECD could hardly be considered to be a bastion of the principles of a free health service, but that at least it had recognised that basic services could not be abandoned in the way the HSE seem to be hell-bent on doing in the North East Region.

“The Workers’ Party now calls on the government to at a minimum implement the proposals of the OECD as regards the North East region’s health service. The OECD report recognises that far from over utilising health services the Irish people in fact underutilise these services and I believe the reason for this is the poor service available to the public in our two-tier health service”, said Peter Short.

28th April 2008