Mr Hazzard said,
“I will be following with interest the decision of the HSC Leadership Centre to carry out an evaluation of the Midwifery Led Unit at the Downeshire Hospital.
“It is important that any evaluation takes into account the fact that the Downshire services a large rural community. Health service provision should never be reduced to a numbers game.
“The Downshire Hospital has seen services depleted over the past few years and this evaluation cannot be an excuse to further salami slice the provision of access to services of the rural population.
“The people of County Down need to impress upon the HSC, at the public consultation meetings which they have committed to carrying out, that further centralisation is not an option and in fact we want to see more services brought to the Downshire Hospital.”
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