People with disabilities, their families and carers, cannot keep being left behind as we continue to emerge out of the pandemic.
The pandemic has placed a spotlight on the overworked and understaffed health and social care system in the north.
Much attention has rightly been directed at tackling waiting lists, rebuilding cancer services, supporting mental health services, securing community care packages and addressing the unacceptable waits to get an appointment to see a GP.
What has received little attention is the continued plight of people with disabilities who attend day centres or use respite services.
Over the past two years, as restrictions have been eased, those who rely on getting a few nights’ relief for caring and those who need the support of day centres, have remained in a state of suspended isolation. Some day centres and respites have reopened and offer limited services, but there are large sections of the north where services have not returned.
People with disabilities and their families cannot be left at the whim of a postcode lottery, they must have full access to services.
We all know someone in our family or community who relies on the care system.
And throughout the course of the pandemic, it has been genuinely heartbreaking to see just how far they have been stretched to cope.
We need to now see the urgent resumption of services.
The Public Health Agency was tasked to review the accessibility of day centres and respite services last summer after repeated pleas from carers, the Department of Health received that in October, and in January this year the minister instructed trusts to set out how they would rebuild services.
However, we are now one month on and there is still no plan or action.
There is shamefully no light at the end of the tunnel for those hard-pressed families.
Sinn Féin has listened to the voices of carers, and we have raised their voices directly with the health minister and health trusts.
The health minister must urgently revisit this issue and ensure that the trusts immediately set out clear plans for the full resumption of services.
Those relying on day centres and respite care must not be left behind a moment longer.
Those with disabilities, families and carers must have full and free access to services now.
COLM GILDERNEW MLA
Sinn Féin, Fermanagh
and South Tyrone
Confusion with Russia could have been avoided
The Ukraine deserves sympathy but then didn’t they elect Volodymyr Zelensky who, following his election and promise to bring peace to the whole country, brought instead death and destruction for the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, while encouraging the Banderos and Azov brigades to bombard this area for more than eight years. Being Jewish, I would have thought Zelensky would have banned these groups from holding their torch-lit marches in the Maidan – so reminiscent of 1930s Germany – but then, is he really in charge? All this current confusion with Russia could have been avoided had he signed up to the Minsk accords when offered but he declined, while everyone continued to ignore Russia’s constant warnings about its red lines and security requirements. President Zelensky then recklessly threatened to restart their nuclear programme, which is a big threat to Russia’s safety, and has probably set this invasion in motion. I suggest the Ukraine would be better served removing these fascist factions, along with its dangerously weak president, who is now going cap in hand to the same western leaders who have placed Ukraine in such peril.
Russia has been a centuries-old previous partner, and would probably be willing to realign with the Ukraine on equal terms, but as a neutral state. Surely Ukranians must now realise that they’ve been treated as pawns by the west since 2014, so it’s about time to reclaim some self respect as a sovereign country in its own right.
The western leaders will certainly take notice, in future, when Russia requests a dialogue over security.
EDWARD MURPHY
Ballycastle, Co Antrim
Verbal somersaults
REGARDING the article – ‘Brexit and suspension not deterring investors, insists DUP minister’ (March 4) – the minister in question is Gordon Lyons, his remit economy. He tells readers that the resignation of the DUP’s Paul Givan as First Minister has had no effect on investors.
Mr Lyon’s leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, said in a TV interview, that the inability to have a three-year budget developed was not the fault of the DUP but of Sinn Féin not doing enough.
Now it was my understanding that the purpose of the resignation was to make the executive unworkable, which it certainly is doing.
Health Minister Robin Swann is quoted (March 2) as saying that the DUP had “robbed” patients and health staff.
So what is happening here? Contradictions abound.
It would be easy to categorise such verbal somersaults as comical, but this, in my view, would not be the entire answer. I believe this behaviour to be symptomatic of a party that cannot come to terms with such concepts as genuine inclusivity and embracing difference. A party that stays locked into firm, set-in-stone themes that see such as threats. Demographic change and quality of life issues are seen not as appropriate for innovation but as perilous to ‘a way of life’. How people of a unionist persuasion deal with this is something one hopes they will ponder long on.
MANUS McDAID
Derry City
Power of prayer
I have a simple faith, but a strong faith, passed on to me by my late parents. My faith has sustained me over many trials and losses in my lifetime and I believe greatly in the power of prayer. Two years ago on March 15 – that awful Sunday when parishioners were no longer allowed to attend Mass in church – it was also my mother’s anniversary, the first time I could not be at Mass for her. Our chapel was open for private prayer and my husband and I walked up. As we entered the chapel the Angelus bell was ringing and, joined by others who were there, we spontaneously started to say the Angelus. At that moment it dawned on me this is a beautiful prayer which had sustained our ancestors in even more difficult times and any worries or fears left me. I reckon my mother had a hand in the timing of my visit to the chapel that day. Since then we have said the Angelus every day. We pray for protection from Covid and also it is a lovely prayer to say for all those who sadly died during this time. If we couldn’t attend a funeral we prayed the Angelus for the deceased.
I would urge people, especially in these difficult times of such atrocities in the Ukraine, when you hear the Angelus bell ringing,
stop for a moment and pray for peace.
ANNE McCUSKER
Donaghmore, Co Tyrone
