SDLP Foyle MLA Sinead McLaughlin
It follows the publication of the Health Inequalities Annual Report 2024.
The Report found that the gap between the most and least deprived areas in healthy life expectancy stood at more than 12 years for males and more than 14 years for females in 2020-22 and that the gaps have remained similar over the last five years.
The Report also found that drug misuse mortality in the most deprived areas of the Western Trust was almost two and a half times the Trust average.
In the Western Trust, the gap in life expectancy at birth between the Trust and its 20% most deprived areas was 5 years for males and 2.7 years for females. Of the 32 health outcome indicators analysed for Derry City City & Strabane residents, 15 were worse than the NI average.
Ms. McLaughlin is bringing forward a proposal for legislation that would put binding obligations on Executive departments to measure and address regional imbalances in government policy, including in the Department of Health.
Said the Foyle MLA: “This report evidences in black and white that where you are born in Northern Ireland still undermines your opportunities and in many cases limits your life expectancy.
“The truth is that government policy is driving and entrenching these inequalities, by concentrating investment, jobs and policy interventions in places that have already done well, while letting areas that have been left behind to fall further and further back.
“Here in Derry, we have an addiction crisis and an epidemic of poor mental health situated in some of the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.
“It is particularly worrying, for example, that in the Western trust, the rate of drug misuse mortality in our most deprived areas is almost two and a half times the Trust average. Yet our local Trust receives little additional resource to meet those levels of poverty.
“Our health policy, like so much of public policy, has been regionally blind.
“If he truly wants to make a difference on health inequalities, one of the most important measures the new Minister could take would be to look at his Budget and start to change the approach of his department by tilting the balance of investment to those areas that have suffered most disadvantage.
“I look forward to receiving more information on the targeted initiatives that the Health Minister has indicated he will be taking forward in this area in the coming months.
“However, I will also be writing to the Minister to urge him to support my call for legislation on inequality and regional imbalance.
“Even if this Health Minister focuses on alleviating regional inequalities, we cannot let progress on the issues be subject to the flavour of Minister who happens to be in post.
“A long-term approach is particularly important when it comes to health inequalities, since the measurement of closing those gaps in life expectancy will take many years.”
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