A senior minister in Northern Ireland’s parliament has said he is reconsidering his lifelong ideological opposition against private healthcare after he himself has fallen victim to the surge in cancer surgery delays caused by Covid-19.
Stormont minister Edwin Poots (pictured) has been diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his kidney and fears it could spread because of increased NHS waiting times.
He told the BBC that the growth was discovered last year during emergency surgery to his appendix.
The DUP agriculture minister said that news that cancer surgery is being cancelled or delayed due to coronavirus pressures “came as an awful blow”.
He said: “It is absolutely doubtless that there were will be excess deaths.”
Reports of cancer surgery delays and cancellations have emerged in all parts of the UK in recent weeks as hospital capacity reaches breaking point due to the constant influx of Covid-19 patients.
Health chiefs have been wrestling with the difficult balance act of dealing with Covid-19 while keeping regular activity at “normal” levels.
Poots, who is currently on a waiting list for cancer surgery, said his political ideology had always been against private healthcare, but he is now thinking about having a private operation.
He told the Nolan Show: “I would never have taken out private health insurance because I have always believed that what is good enough for the public is good enough for me as a public representative.
“But whenever I need it, it is not here to help me because it is totally absorbed in dealing with Covid-19 and that’s hugely disappointing at a personal level.
“If I have to spend £10,000 or £15,000 – I don’t know how much it would be to be honest – if I have to spent that, I will do, because it is better to have something out of you that has the potential to take your life than carry on,” he told the programme.
“Some people may criticise me for that but I’m not going to give up my life for a political ideology.”
The former health minister said he did not regret previously calling for some of the coronavirus restrictions to be lifted, despite health chiefs warning they were needed to protect the NHS.
