Right to Health

PPR have expressed concern about the Health and Social Care Board's plans to reconfigure Belfast's Emergency Departments in a public consultation. The plans, which will see the permanent closure of Belfast City Hospital's Emergency Department do not adequately assess the potential impact on the most vulnerable.

The Belfast Mental Health Rights Group have expressed their concern that the Card Before You Leave Scheme could be at risk. The scheme launched in 2011 by Minister for Health Michael McGimpsey (pictured) has been positively evaluated by the Health and Social Care Board, and has resulted in the number of mental health patients who do not attend their follow up appointments falling by almost half, yet indications have been made that it is 'under review'.

A big thanks from Belfast Mental Health Rights Group to everyone who attended their ‘Services at Breaking Point: Fighting to Have our Voices Heard’ event on Wednesday 16th May at the MAC in Belfast. For more details on the event and to download the group's report please click below.

At a rally in the Oldpark area of North Belfast last Monday night several hundred people heard Philip McTaggart a founder member of PIPS call for suicide prevention to be everybody’s business. The rally came in response to several suicides which took place in the North Belfast area since Easter – mostly of young men. Gerard McCartan spoke as an individual who has lost a son to suicide in 2005 but has not seen many of the changes in services promised by government after the Review in to his son’s death. Supporting people trying to get help when they most needed, through his work with PIPS and Belfast Mental Health Rights Group, he expressed frustration at seeing at first hand many of the same problems he and his wife Carol had encountered in getting services at the right time. He reiterated the main message of the rally which was that it was past the time for talking – it was time for action.