Jill Weir and Benny Cassidy speak to Ryan Smith.
THERE IS widespread fear and anger among health staff as the Western Trust begins the implementation of £7m worth of cuts to healthcare here, according to local union representatives.
Speaking to the Fermanagh Herald this week, two senior Unison members, Benny Cassidy and Jill Weir summed up the mood on the corridors of the South West Acute Hospital as one of worry and fear.
Benny is a previous branch secretary, and he was replaced by Jill several years ago. Both are key union figures here and are in touch on a daily basis with healthcare staff.
In the week that the nature of healthcare cuts here were revealed, the pair spoke to this paper, urging the public to get behind the health service.
“The public don’t really see what is happening,” Benny explained.
“The staff themselves, we’ve never felt as much pressure as this. There was privatisation, there was shifts of services, there was new hospitals, all sorts of things. But at the minute it’s crisis.
“I love the NHS and I believe that it should remain public. We don’t even want to keep it as it is, we want to see it keep improving. And properly invested in. We have growing demands but we’re reducing budgets.
“It’s like trying to run your car without petrol and seeing how you do. It just won’t run.”
Similarly, Jill said that she has never felt the impact of cuts to this degree. She described staff as ‘so distressed’.
“We’d an incident where a nurse was given a two year contract and she started into it a month and was given a week’s notice. She’s made plans around those two years. It’s real things like ‘I’m not going to be able to pay my mortgage now’. The expectation would be with us in the NHS would be that we ‘absorb’ work but it’s like a sponge, we can only take so much. That is having a detrimental affect on the morale and also the health of the workers in the NHS.”
On a daily basis, Jill said that staff, especially temporary staff, of whom the Western Trust are currently examining contracts, are coming to her to ask about the future of their positions within the service.
“It’s the topic of conversation in every department. People are saying they’re permanent and they’ll maybe breath a sigh of relief that they’re OK for now. But it’s the temporary staff who are all very very worried and they’re coming to me and saying: ‘Do you think I’ll go in the morning’ and I say ‘I can’t assure any of you’.”
Benny added: “Jill’s right, people are upset, they’re angry, there’s a whole range of emotions out there. But what we’ve noticed as well is that people have gone quiet. Which is a worrying thing. They don’t know what to make of all this, they’ve never been in that situation before.”
Jill appealed to members of the public to lobby elected representatives.
“I would ask the general public that when they are coming to use the services that it’s not the front-line staff they should be taking their frustrations out on. This is their elected ministers who are making these decisions. Ring them, ring your councillors and say it’s not good enough: Because it’s not good enough. The NHS will be there as long as the people are there to defend it. And this is where we need people to defend it.”
Benny concluded: “It’s time to say enough is enough. The Western Trust has £7m to save out of the £30m. You can’t take that kind of money out and expect people not to notice the change.”
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