In the latest example of what has become a grim festive tradition, ambulances have once again queued outside our hospitals. Hundreds of patients are waiting for beds. Wards are overcrowded, spilling into corridors.
The Department of Health has apologised to “all patients who are waiting longer than they should”, which will be of little solace to anyone stuck for hours in the back of an ambulance.
Read more: Hundreds of patients wait on beds as winter pressures bite at hospitals
A significant part of the problem is that too many medically fit patients are not being discharged promptly enough. This can be because of the challenges around organising a nursing home place or a care package. These are ‘Cinderella’ services which have had neither the investment nor political attention they deserve.
But it also needs to be acknowledged that some patients and their families would rather stay in hospital than accept alternative arrangements. ‘Blocking’ a bed in this manner means that someone lying in an ambulance or languishing on a chair in a crowded Emergency Department isn’t able to benefit from appropriate treatment.
Read more: Warning that NI health services facing ‘severe pressure’
All of this is another depressing reminder that our health and social care service is on its knees, overstretched and under-resourced in key areas.
There is the temptation to shrug our shoulders at this apparently incurable malaise, to start to imagine that it is somehow normal for the health service to be case into crisis each winter, and that it is simply what we should expect.
The same could be said of Northern Ireland’s extraordinarily long waiting lists, or the difficulty in getting through to a GP surgery, or in arranging NHS dental treatment.
The public shouldn’t have to accept such sub-standard health and social care provision, particularly when such a vast amount of taxpayers’ money is devoted to it
But the public shouldn’t have to accept such sub-standard health and social care provision, particularly when such a vast amount of taxpayers’ money - £8.79 billion for 2025/26, or around half of Stormont’s budget - is devoted to it.
Read more: 2024 in review: Health
Clearly something is going badly wrong. Every Stormont Executive talks about making health its priority, and this one has been no different. Yet can there be a more vivid illustration of the failure of Stormont politicians over a period of many years than the plight of the health service? There is a staggering disconnect between the warm words of good intentions and the cold reality of bad outcomes.
Mike Nesbitt is the latest health minister to try to get to grips with the task. He appears to have been engaged so far in a lot of planning and preparatory work, but we are long past the point where we need to see real action.
As we stand ready to view 2025′s unwritten page, he needs to get on with the reforms and take the hard decisions necessary to get our health and social care service off life support.
If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here
Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.
