People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
"The crisis in our health service has been manufactured to facilitate privatisation and profiteering.
I welcome the near unanimous support our February motion received in Derry City and Strabane Council calling for a halt to privatisation and cherry-picking by private companies.
I'm looking forward to the Health and Community Committee deputation this Thursday by UNISON policy officer Kellie Turtle and investigative journalist Tommy Green, both of whom will discuss the impact of privatisation and the trade union-led campaign opposing it.
Our health service is facing severe challenges that undermine patient care and also bring mounting pressures for the workers at its heart.
These challenges are the result of defunding and shouldn't be used as an opportunity to make profits, and further undermine access to high-quality care that's free at the point of use.
Responses from the Health Minister and others, claim that private health care is a necessary evil to deal with unprecedented waiting lists.
There is no clear commitment to ending it and it's clear private companies aim to embed themselves in the health service.
The British government has created a further unprecedented danger by granting the US military-tech company Palantir unlimited access to NHS England patient data. Palantir, closely linked with US President Trump and the Israeli military, sees health care solely as a means to enrich billionaires and suck profit out of government and those needing care.
If Stormont doesn't halt the further privatisation of the health service here, it follows logic for the likes of Palantir to ultimately be given full access to patient data here too. This is unacceptable.
This is exactly why People Before Profit will challenge the Health Minister and Stormont Executive on their facilitation of privatisation.
Now is time to back the trade union campaign to stop privatisation of the health service. Public funding should be directed to building the capacity of the health service to deliver care and to pay workers properly."
People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin's motion passed in February meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council:
Council is alarmed at the more than £302 million paid to private sector providers by the combined Health and Social Care Trusts between April 2020 and April 2025.
Council agrees this scale of spending is draining capacity from our health and social care system.
Council is alarmed at the Stormont Executive's increasing reliance on a private health sector that cherry-picks lower-risk, healthier and wealthier patients creating a two-tier system while health inequalities worsen.
Council will write to the Stormont Executive parties to make clear our opposition to the diversion of public funding into short-term private sector fixes that cause further destabilisation by reducing resources and capacity for public services.
Council will write to the Health Minister demanding an end to the further embedding of public-private partnerships that encourage private healthcare services.
Council will write to the Western Trust requesting a breakdown of spending on private healthcare in the period between April 2020 and April 2025.
Council will write to UNISON in support of its campaign to stop privatisation of the health service and will invite Kellie Turtle, UNISON NI Policy Officer, and journalist Tommy Greene, to a deputation on the crisis facing the health service while private healthcare profits surge.