Securing our community’s health

Securing our community’s health is essential to the people of Mann living happy, healthy and lengthy lives. Speaking with many local people over recent weeks, our plan to secure our community’s health is focused on three key principles:

• Local
• Universally accessible
• High-quality

The Douglas South by-election won’t change the Government. Health Minister David Ashford will remain as Health Minister. Chief Minister Howard Quayle will remain as Chief Minister. They will continue to manage the Government, regardless of the outcome in the by-election.

Supporting Michael Josem in the by-election will send a strong message to secure our community’s health. Supporting Josem will ensure that Douglas South has a strong voice to support our national health service, in the interests of protecting the lives and health of the people of Mann.

Local

Our island will never be fully self-sufficient for health services. But we should look to make more services available locally, giving people the option to avoid travel off-island for diagnosis or treatment. Many local residents have grave concerns about the stress of spending a whole day to travel off-island for a short 20 minute consultation with a doctor in England – stresses they are concerned about in normal times, let alone amidst a global pandemic!

That’s why we should be investing in cutting-edge diagnostic tools and telehealth to improve the health of people in our community. However, when expert treatment is needed off-island, it should of course still be available.

Universally accessible

Every person on the Isle of Man should be able to access our national health service. As the member for Douglas South, Michael Josem will oppose any effort to privatise the Isle of Man’s national health service, and will be very skeptical of the Government’s current plans to corporatise the health service. At times like these, the Isle of Man Government should not be putting the universal accessibility of our health service at risk.

High quality

We all recognised the efforts of key workers like nurses, doctors and other health professionals during the coronavirus pandemic. They made very courageous and heroic sacrifices during the height of the pandemic to protect us.

Not only should key workers be recognised spiritually and emotionally for their service, but they should be rewarded financially for their service. Paying doctors and nurses fairly isn’t just the morally right thing to do: it will help the Isle of Man’s health service attract and retain the best staff possible.

In addition, as a small jurisdiction, the Isle of Man has an opportunity to be at the cutting edge of world-leading health technology and services. In a post-Brexit world, where the Isle of Man is not restricted by the European Union’s clinical services directive, local residents have said that we should allow research on life-extending treatments for people who choose to participate. Not only do opportunities like this benefit patients, but it also has the potential to build thriving and dynamic jobs for Manx researchers.