Will Welsh NHS be a factor in Alyn & Deeside by-election.

 Under normal circumstances  the State of the Welsh NHS under Labour could have been a major factor in the Alyn and Deeside by-election.

Whilst the Labour Party in England and Scotland  attack the Tories for running the NHS there and less successfully the SNP in Scotland (Where performance seems to be better) their runing of it  where they are actualy in power.

Now following  England's Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, apologising on Wednesday for cancelled operations there, as has the prime minister Theressa May.

His Welsh counterpart  Vaughan Gething has followed suit.

Vaughan Gething said he was "genuinely sorry" if people's treatment had been interrupted.
But he maintained the health system was well-prepared to cope with the increased demand on services.

Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies called Mr Gething's comments "late in the day" and "just not good enough". which if not hypocritical is at least  laughable  as there no indication that the Tories would do any diffrent in power in Wales as they are now doing in England,

Mr Gething told BBC Wales:

 "In planning for winter the health service reduces the level of planned admissions for operations in any event but given the pressures we've seen understandably there have been extra cancellations".
"I don't actually think that anyone facing a planned operation that's cancelled would say it's more important that they have treatment than someone who is a genuine emergency.
"But I'm genuinely sorry if anyone has had their care or treatment postponed because of the pressure we are facing."

In November Mr Gething said the health system was in the "best possible position" to cope with winter pressures.

The poor Lib Dems in Wales  are in no position to raise the issue after being in coalition with the Tories less than three years ago (how long ago it seems) and their sole AM is in the Welsh Labour Cabinet (though luckily not health)


So that leaves Plaid with relatively clean hands.
 
Plaid Alyn and Deeside candidate Carrie Harper who lives in nearby Wrexham  and who was involved in a campaign to keep maternity services in north Wales and challenged the then health minister Lesley Griffiths on the downgrading of special care baby units in Wrexham and Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.said:

 “This is a by-election that we all wish wasn’t needed and my first thoughts are with the family of Carl Sargeant.
“Our campaign as a party will be to highlight the problems facing the NHS in Wales. Alyn and Deeside along with many other parts of Wales is seeing a crisis in GP practices, huge delays in getting treatment for orthopaedic and other services as well as long queues at A&E.
“Betsi Cadwaladr health board is running a huge deficit, despite being under the direct control of the Welsh Labour Government for the past 30 months with no prospect of improvement. GPs in Deeside as elsewhere are under pressure because of a failure to invest properly in a long-term training and recruitment programme that means this part of Wales has failed to keep pace with retirements.
“Plaid Cymru’s solution, which we’ve been advocating for the past four years, is to train and recruit 1,000 extra doctors. There is no quick fix but the failure of the ruling Labour party to take action has led to this worsening crisis. If we keep voting the same way, we’ll get the same results and nobody wants that.”

Personally ,I would like  like to see an all party consensus  on the future of the NHS in Wales, but with Labour hypocrisy in attacking the SNP record in Scotland for their running of the NHS where it seems to doing better  than the rest of the UK, whilst where they are in power here  where we are at the bottom, thre seems slim chance of that,