A local MLA has called for the the development in Derry of a North West Connection Health Innovation Corridor (NWCHIC).
Maeve McLaughlin
The call comes after the launch of a new £7 million Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC) at Jordanstown yesterday.
Sinn Fein’s Maeve McLaughlin, a member of the Stormont Health Committee, called the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry (DETI) and health ministers to show the same level of commitment to the “already existing facilities” available in Derry and the North West region.
She said eminent speakers at a NWCHIC seminar held in the city in May last agreed that Derry and North West was “perfectly located” and had available the facilities needed for the development of such a programme.
She added: “Derry’s One Plan also recognised health innovation as a means of addressing inequalities and incorporated the development of the sector into the Plan under the catalyst programmes for ‘Growing the Digital Economy and Health for All.”
Ms McLaughlin urged Stormont Heath Edwin Health Minister, Edwin Poots, and his Dublin counterpart, Minister James Reilly, to recognise the opportunities available to this sector in the North West.
The Derry MLA said the North West had already assembled many of the “building blocks” required to lead the way in this sector, including regional hospitals located in Derry, Letterkenny and Sligo, with a new radiotherapy unit imminent in Altnagelvin Hospital.
She added: “Kelvin telecommunications link provides the fastest and most reliable high capacity link between Europe and the US, not to mention a thriving private sector stretching from Sligo to Coleraine. All of this makes us extremely well-placed to take advantage of the trend towards increased technology adoption within healthcare.”
She concluded: “I urge the Health Ministers, North and South to support the potential of these resources to develop a North West Connected Health Corridor that would deliver undoubted health and economic benefits to the whole island.”
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