SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has called on parties to urgently agree an implementation plan that will advance health service transformation.
Ahead of a series of public meetings called by the Health Trusts, Mr Eastwood said that a failure of political leadership should never result in pain or poorer outcomes for patients.
The Western Trust is to meet this Thursday to discuss having to slash up to £10 million to its 2017/18 budget.
He said: “There is now an urgent need to restore the power sharing institutions.
!A summer of opportunity for the parties to get together and work on these issues has now been wasted and all the while, our health service and our schools have been bent to breaking point.
“This cannot continue. It isn’t sustainable and it isn’t working.
“The stand-off between the DUP and Sinn Féin may suit their narrow political narrative but it is an abdication of responsibility.
“A big mandate is a tool for compromise.
“That’s what Hume used it for. Instead these parties are using their mandates as weapons of retrenchment and division.
“As a matter of urgency, I am calling on parties to come together in the talks to agree an implementation plan for health service transformation.
“Almost a year on from the publication of the Bengoa report, it is an unforgiveable act of political neglect that we aren’t advancing the proposals to modernise, rationalise and save our health service.
“There is no more critical issue than the health of the people we represent.
“It must be the priority we unite behind,” added the Foyle MLA.
