{"id":780348,"date":"2026-09-23T21:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780348\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T21:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:22:14","slug":"road-upgrades-should-come-first-before-moving-health-services-says-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780348\/","title":{"rendered":"Road upgrades should &#8216;come first&#8217; before moving health services, says minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But campaigners have expressed concern it could mean another service moves away from the hospital in Newry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kimmins, an assembly member for the Newry and Armagh constituency, said it could lead to women travelling &#8220;very long distances to access maternity care&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The infrastructure to enable them to do that quickly simply isn&#8217;t there,&#8221; she told the infrastructure committee on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Sinn F\u00e9in minister referenced several road schemes including the A1 upgrade, and the Ballynahinch and Cookstown bypasses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;In terms of decisions that are taken around moving services and all, infrastructure is key to that,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And if that&#8217;s not there, and we know that road schemes and new roads etc take a long time, that has to come first before other things can happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So I don&#8217;t want to veer into my colleague in the Department of Health&#8217;s remit but that has to work hand-in-hand across government.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But campaigners have expressed concern it could mean another service moves away from the hospital in Newry. Kimmins,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-780348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780348","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=780348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}