Southern Trust drawing up plans to cut \u00a342.4m off its annual budget next year<\/a><\/p>\nMr McNulty said his worries had been heightened by \u201cthe announcement of a 12 per cent cut across Trusts over the next three years\u201d, which he said had \u201craised alarm bells for health unions about the threat of job cuts, especially for cleaning staff and porters\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCleaning staff and porters are vital to the efficient going of our hospitals. Without them, sanitation and cleanliness standards would not be upheld, furthering risk for the spread of sickness,\u201d he told the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese workers are necessary and valued and should not be treated as disposable by Trusts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posing a series of questions to senior management, the MLA asked: \u201cHow much is currently known about the scale of these cuts, and how will it impact service delivery and staffing in the Southern Trust?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat services and areas are most likely to be impacted by cuts, and are layoffs part of this plan?\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there were already \u201cfunding deficits in the Daisy Hill Hospital estate impacting long-delayed project delivery and essential maintenance works\u201d and warned: \u201cFurther cuts threaten to impact services and disrupt patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning specifically to Newry\u2019s long-promised Community Treatment Centre, Mr McNulty pointed out that similar facilities in Banbridge and Lisburn had been operating for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Newry Community Treatment Centre was promised over a decade ago, but is still on hold awaiting the release of the Department\u2019s 10-year capital plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe treatment centres in Banbridge and Lisburn have long been operational. Only Newry\u2019s Health Hub has not been delivered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m concerned that these cuts will follow on this trajectory of \u2018last to get and first to lose\u2019 trend that keeps persisting with Daisy Hill which has always been disproportionately impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pressed Trust leaders for firm guarantees: \u201cWhat assurances can be made to healthcare workers that their jobs will be protected? And what assurances can be offered to patients and their families that these cuts will not reduce quality of care?<\/p>\n
\u201cMy office is inundated with families at their wits\u2019 end because they are unable to secure a care package for their loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow will the Trust ensure that these cuts do not threaten the capacity and provision of care packages which are already not able to meet the demands of patients and families across this Trust?\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the pressures, Mr McNulty paid tribute to staff across the Southern Trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder such pressure and lack of resources, we still see our incredible healthcare workers working tirelessly to provide high levels of care to all patients,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank them for all their compassion, knowledge and skills in caring for patients in every circumstance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Southern Trust\u2019s Chief Executive is expected to respond to Mr McNulty\u2019s concerns in a separate item on the Trust\u2019s financial plan.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Southern Trust has been warned that sweeping budget cuts could \u201cseriously\u201d damage Daisy Hill Hospital and leave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[27341,390,27340,102,2960,913,50,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-752719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-armagh-city","tag-breaking-news","tag-county-armagh","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-latest-news","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Daisy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Daisy-Hill-hospital-Newry.jpg\")
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