Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on health-related matters. Specifically, I wish to acknowledge the Minister's direct role in response to the flooding at Letterkenny General Hospital last summer. I wish to acknowledge Noel Daly, Ambrose McLoughlin and Bill Maher for their hands-on role in ensuring that the temporary accident and emergency unit was up and going within six weeks. On 3 March the new accident and emergency unit will be up and going again. It is important to acknowledge their role. It is also important to point out that we will have infrastructure and services second to none. Some €6 million is going into radiology services infrastructure and possibly a total of €30 million plus will go to rebuilding the hospital. I wish to acknowledge the difficulty for the staff who are working in an environment which is only half a hospital as well as the duress they are under and the heroic efforts they are making.

I wish to highlight the Minister's proactive role in bringing forward the HIQA review into ambulance services. It was the untimely, sad and tragic death of Mrs. Maura Porter in Carndonagh that led to the review being brought forward from quarter 2 to quarter 1. I hope that the Porter family's experience will be recognised during the review and investigation. It is an absolute tragedy that a person has to die along the side of the road when there are ambulances in the area and in the county unable to come at the particular time. It is important to take this review seriously and I am keen to see a close examination of the circumstances of Mrs. Porter's tragic death.

I do not intend to use the two minutes available to me as a political football opportunity. Fianna Fáil was in the Department of Health and created the system. We have inherited the legacy. That is the reality. I remember when Ms Mary Harney was the Minister, the Fianna Fáil Members in my neck of the woods used to blame her and said it was not the fault of Fianna Fáil. I do not intend to waste time on that issue but I have had an opportunity to see the weaknesses within the system. There are vast challenges involved in reforming the system. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, and the Minister of State, Deputy White, are certainly making great efforts to reform the system. It is not without its difficulties and there are weaknesses. I came across an example this morning. I met in a gentleman who has been waiting seven years for a hip replacement. That is totally unacceptable and the system which lends itself to this example is totally unacceptable. I am from a farming background and Deputy Billy Kelleher has experience as a farmer. No farmer would wait seven hours to bring an animal to the vet. In this case, it has been seven years and the gentleman cannot sit down or stand up without pain.

When I asked whether he experienced any relief when he is in bed, he replied that he had not slept in years.

This is just one example of the legacy we inherited and the weaknesses within the system. The question is how we go about addressing them. We in this House have a responsibility and obligation to help the people who are trying to change the system. We can continue with the banter across the Chamber, making the issue into a political football, but that will not solve anything. We must work together with the people who are charged with implementing change. There are proactive and reforming people in the health sector, pioneers in their field and people who have experience in other jurisdictions. We must assist them to build a system under which it is no longer acceptable to have people waiting seven years for a hip replacement.

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