A HIGH-profile hospital consultant has launched a blistering attack on Paul Givan's decision to resign - describing it as a "kick in the teeth" for healthcare workers.
Dr David Farren has worked at the front line throughout the pandemic and said there have been moments when he and his colleagues wanted to quit, but kept going as "the service requires us to be at work".
In an interview with The Irish News, the British Medical Association (BMA) consultants' committee chair also warned the loss of a planned three-year budget - which requires executive sign-off - will have a devastating impact on workforce planning and life-saving surgeries.
"Our first minister was clearly so frustrated with the protocol process that he felt he had to resign," Dr Farren said.
"The fact is every single doctor in this country has felt frustrated in their workplace for the last two years because they have not been able to do the job they’ve been trained to do.
"And yet, we are still working because we recognised that people depend on us for their health and the service requires us to be at work.
"Several people said to me after the resignation that if they 'threw the toys out of the pram and left work', there would baying for their blood.
"So this feels like a kick in the teeth to the healthcare staff who have been told we are 'all in it together'."
Working as an infection control specialist at Antrim Area Hospital, Dr Farren said the pressures are as bad as they were in July amid severely depleted staffing levels due to Omicron.
While the number of hospital admissions has fallen, the length of stay for Covid cases is much longer.
As waiting lists escalate further, the BMA chair said some of his surgical colleagues are unable to perform time-critical cancer surgery.
"We are still trying to deliver a high quality healthcare service, but Covid makes literally every aspect of our job 10 times harder and we can’t deliver same throughput as in past," Dr Farren added.
"I talk to consultant surgeons who are frustrated as they know there are patients on their waiting lists who will either die before they have their operation or, if it is something that requires an investigation for cancer, that it may be too late for that patient’s cancer to be treated adequately.
"They feel a personal responsibility because they are seeing these patients in clinics and there is nothing they can do to bring it forward because the waiting lists are so long.
"Our waiting lists are now measured in years instead of months. They are an embarrassment for the NHS."
Following the tumultuous political events of the last 48 hours that has left the Stormont executive unable to sign off on key policy issues, it likely that a draft three-year budget will remain on the shelf.
The health service has, in the past, been dependent on year-on-year rolling budgets leading to huge difficulties for service planning and staff retention.
This was the first time in over a decade that a three-year plan was on the table.
Dr Farren said it represented one of the "few shreds of hope".
"It allows you to plan, it allows you to look. If you have an annual rolling budget, it’s very difficult to expand a service and employ new staff. At the end of the year, if the money’s not there, then that person loses their job. It’s very hard to get temporary staff to step in," he said.
"That three-year budget would have allowed us to put a bit of stability in with a plan in place to tackle these waiting lists.
"It’s going to be using the independent sector more than likely but also put forward good initiatives like we’ve had in the past such as ophthalmology surgical centres in the Northern Trust. These are for people sitting at home losing their sight, that has a massive impact psychologically to patients."
Fears about the collapse of Stormont are mounting after DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said yesterday it will be "difficult" for his party to form a government post-election if issues around the protocol are not addressed.
When asked to comment on the impact of devolution being removed for a second time, Dr Farren replied: "It is very, very demoralising. Work needs to be done and budgets need to be in place for us to have a properly functioning health service for everyone across Northern Ireland - but yet again we see politics being played with health.
"Every single time there is an election, the BMA attend a hustings event. Every party starts with the line: ‘health is too important to play politics with'. But here we are again and health suffering as a result.
"It is just unacceptable."
The DUP was contacted for comment.
