Pembrokeshire AM Angela Burns raised her concerns with First Minister Carwyn Jones during this week’s Question Time over how difficult it is for patients to get to essential hospital services that are not provided locally given the appalling state of public transport infrastructure.
Mrs Burns asked the First Minister, “Will you be able to ensure that the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Minister with responsibility for transport can work together to ensure that services that are being leached eastwards, away from West Wales, can be got at by the patients who need them? ”
The First Minister replied in part “It is important that people are able to access services as locally as possible.”
Mrs Burns also said “The public transport and roads are so poor, it is almost impossible for an elderly person, living somewhere like Castlemartin, for example, to get to Morriston Hospital in time for a 9 a.m. appointment for kidney dialysis or anything else.”
Commenting later Mrs Burns said “If the current trend of specialist services are to keep moving eastward to Carmarthen, Swansea and Cardiff how are patients supposed to travel when the public transport and the road infrastructure are so poor? The Welsh Government needs to fully assess the impact on the people of West Wales. I believe that the government should use “joined up” thinking when making decisions in the future.
