Eastwood: NHS has ‘basically collapsed’ with outcomes that would ‘embarrass third world country’ - video Dailymotion

Eastwood: NHS has ‘basically collapsed’ with outcomes that would ‘embarrass third world country’

Transcript

00:00 In my constituency, we've still got the highest levels of unemployment.

00:03 You know, we're still being held back by governmental inaction,

00:07 and actual deliberate action to keep people economically disengaged in the economy.

00:12 So, I mean, my view is no matter what, we have to get to a point

00:17 where we don't just have a government, which would be a nice start,

00:21 but we have a government that delivers for people.

00:23 But we don't have a society where a quarter, a quarter of the population of Northern Ireland

00:28 is on a hospital waiting list, and those are getting longer, those lists.

00:32 I mean, it is scandalous, actually, that the health service,

00:36 which has basically collapsed in Northern Ireland, would embarrass a third world country.

00:42 You know, I have people in my constituency going to the credit union to borrow money

00:47 so that they can get private health care, because there's no other way of getting it.

00:52 And we talk about the NHS, and we all love the NHS, we love the people who work in the NHS,

00:56 and we talk about it in these kind of mystical terms, because the whole point of it is it's

01:00 supposed to be free at the point of delivery. But if you can't get access to it, then there

01:04 is no delivery. So you end up paying for it. So I suppose what I'm saying is, in the middle

01:09 of all our identity politics and tribalism, we're forgetting the fact that we're actually elected.

01:14 And sometimes in Northern Ireland, I think we send messages rather than ministers

01:17 to Stormont, and that just does not serve us and hasn't served us very well.