Posted: Wed 1st Apr 2020

Welsh Government insists North Wales will not miss out on health provisions to fight coronavirus

North Wales news and information
This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Apr 1st, 2020

The Welsh Government has said North Wales will not miss out on health provisions in the fight against the coronavirus.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething said he was making decisions “for the whole country” at a press conference held yesterday.

It followed a question submitted by Wrexham.com asking how firm a “one nation pool” of ventilators announced last week was and whether there was a possibility of the south of the country taking priority.

Mr Gething said: “Just as within the UK we have been really clear the resources have to go to the need, that has to be the case within Wales as well.

“Now is exactly the wrong time to go into stoking or creating divisions between regions of Wales that do not exist, and do not reflect the way that this national government for Wales makes choices.

“I certainly make all of my choices as a Minister for the whole country, and I hope people will see that as we make more and more choices to support our health and care system across the whole country.

“Indeed, in response to the question about field hospitals, when you see the plans that exist in every part of Wales, there is no prospect of one part of Wales being prioritised over another.”

It was announced yesterday that Venue Cymru in Llandudno had become the first location in the region chosen for a temporary field hospital.

Sky News also asked about the UK-wide system and ‘whether there’s enough trust to make sure there’s a fair allocation to Wales in the months to come’.

Mr Gething said: “It is really important that the UK Government fund the need as it exists in different parts of the UK.

“We could be relatively fortunate in Wales, in terms of the impact here, in which case our call on resources wouldn’t be the same.

“But equally if the other position were to be the case and we had a much deeper and harder impact in Wales than the rest of the UK, I would not want to see and I do not think it’d be tenable to have a UK wide funding system and solution that didn’t recognise the differential need that different parts of the UK will have.

“I can also confirm on some of the broader points about working within the four nations of the UK that the four cabinet health ministers had a meeting at the end of last week to talk about our common expectations for the way in which we expect supply chains to work.

“To make sure that we had agreement on UK wide rules of equity between the four nations of the UK to make sure that supplies generally are being dealt with on a UK wide basis .”

You can view the full briefing along with the Q&A session via the below video:



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