Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

May I ask about diagnostics specifically? I am one of those who keep saying we need to open the diagnostics suites for longer. One of the points I make is that in many of our hospitals, an MRI machine might be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday to Friday. I had arguments with hospital managers over an elderly man who was strapped to a backboard and in urgent need of an MRI. The conversation was to the effect that since they believed he could not be admitted before 5 p.m. and that it was Friday, he should be kept strapped to the board until Monday morning, when an effort was to be made to admit him. In this case, the diagnostics suite stayed open. One of the points made to me as somebody who argues diagnostics suites need to be open for longer is that, in Australia, the patient receives a letter saying he will get his MRI at 2 a.m. on Saturday night. It is said to me that the unions would never allow that here. I am told such a system is all well and good and that I am awfully naive because the unions would stop me dead in my tracks. I do not believe that. The witnesses represent the unions. What is their response to people who say that?