Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill insist on Magee expansion at Ard Fheis

In her keynote address at the Helix on Saturday the Sinn Féin leader said: "Our health service must work for everyone - for patients and for our healthcare workers.

"We need to plan for our healthcare workforce. We need more nurses, more doctors and more therapists.

"The expansion at Magee University in Derry is a good start but it is only that. Our student nurses and midwives deserve to be recognised and rewarded.

"We again call on the government to do right by them. We need to get to grips with record waiting lists.

"That means more beds, recruiting more staff, additional theatre and diagnostic capacity.

"The right to healthcare is a fundamental value of the Irish people and that is what we will deliver."

The Sinn Féin Vice-President Michelle O'Neill, in her speech at the Ard Fheis, also spoke of the importance of the Graduate Entry Medical School (GEMS) but said further expansion of the Derry campus of Ulster University is necessary.

"In August one of our key commitments in the North was delivered upon when the new medical school at Magee took in its first 70 students.

"We must now work to expand Magee to ensure it reaches its 10,000 students and creates long-term economic benefits for Derry and the North-West," said Ms. O'Neill.