By protecting economy we will also be saving lives, says chief doctor

NORTHERN Ireland’s most senior doctor has warned that the economy must be protected to save lives.

Dr Michael Mcbride was giving evidence at the Stormont health committee yesterday and told MLAS that “poverty kills people, too”.

The chief medical officer said the Executive is facing a difficult balance between reducing the spread of coronavirus and ensuring the health of the population is not damaged in the long term as a result of social distancing measures.

He said: “We have sadly seen loss of life and we are going to see in the coming weeks numbers of deaths increase and the rates of those deaths increase as well. That is a significant loss and our priority is to reduce mortality, both direct mortality from the virus and indirect mortality where the health service is overwhelmed.

“That’s why the importance of the message is to stay at home, avoid unnecessary travel and to adhere to rules around social distancing. But we also need to remember that poverty kills people, too. That’s why it’s important we maintain the balance between ensuring that any impact on our wider economy in the longer term doesn’t significantly disadvantage those who are often already most economically disadvantaged, so, there is balance here.

“Nothing trumps saving a life and that’s why adhering to the Public Health Agency advice to employers on social distancing and our general advice is so important because that will pull down the peak and will protect the health service and it will allow us to provide optimum care.

“We also need to be clear that in the medium to longer term that we need to ensure that what we don’t do is collapse the economy and end up with those who are in the most socio-economic deprived areas suffering the consequences.

“We know the very strong links that we have to a number of physical issues, but also longer-term mental health issues, and to say that any steps we take around social distancing are likely to be put in place for quite some time, and we need to think about the sustainability of that.”

Dr Mcbride’s comments about protecting the economy to protect the health of the population came a day after the Department of Health released figures from the latest health inequalities report. It revealed that suicides and alcohol and drug-related conditions, and the levels of smoking during pregnancy, were all higher in the most deprived areas here.