Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and the officials for coming here. I am sorry that what I am going to say is not going to be pleasant but I am sure they have heard it all before.

The reason I am here is the dysfunction in the services. I have a son who I speak about with his permission as he is very anxious I speak about this. He is now 20 years of age. You have failed him. He has not received any meaningful physiotherapy, speech therapy or occupational therapy since 2011. That is when it started, namely, with the crash and the austerity cuts that were imposed by some of the Deputies here. A virtue was made of inflicting pain on people who were the most vulnerable in Irish society. I spoke to Enda Kenny in 2011 and begged him as a parent: "Do not impose any more cuts on persons with disabilities or carers". He said he could not give me that undertaking. He told me this is a private matter between me and my son and that the State could not be expected to intervene meaningfully in the lives of persons with disabilities. That is the ideological imperative that has brought us to this space. My son receives no physiotherapy - none. The only physiotherapy he has received in the past ten years was to measure his deterioration. It is a struggle to get a wheelchair. Would you please ask your staff to staff to stop revoking our medical card? Would you please ask your staff to staff to stop revoking our public services card with his companion for travel?

The obstacles that have been put in front of families like mine add insult to the injury that has already been inflicted. You are inflicting harm on our children. You have failed completely. The Minister of State mentioned the progressing disability services and the language in the documents are a unicorn as they do not exist. Maybe they do exist in her imagination but it does not exist on the ground.

In our lived experience children deteriorate for a lack of intervention to the point that it becomes life limiting and life threatening. In Eoghan's case, his scoliosis was so bad that his lung function was reduced to about 25% and the curvature of his spine had compressed his chest cavity to the extent that his heart was not located where it should have been. When a paediatric cardiologist scanned his heart and performed an echocardiogram she invited her team to take a look at the scan as it was such an extreme example. Eoghan watched his own heart on the screen and he got such a fright that he got sick into the sink. He has a great sense of humour because he said that it is all right for everyone else because it is not their heart on the screen.

When Eoghan had surgery he was an anaesthetic risk because there was a possibility that he would not survive. For his transition year he underwent surgery but the procedure was far too late. The surgery took nine hours and afterwards the anaesthetist manually ventilated and stayed in the theatre with him. Even though she has her own family she stayed until she manually took him off the intubation because she felt that he might not survive in intensive care. All of that was avoidable.

The problem does not lie with the clinicians, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists or occupational therapists. The problem lies with the Minister, the Minister of State and the Department of Health and their failure to meaningfully engage with groups like the IHCA and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. The Government must restore pay equality. I am glad that the Minister of State has met a few of our medical graduates who came home. Why does she think that all of our physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists are leaving to go to Canada, Australia or the UK? It is because this jurisdiction is a crap place to work. I have a family member who works as a doctor in the system and her advice to any young person is to leave this jurisdiction. During the week Dr. Ray Walley said that 75% of medical graduates plan to leave. I have other family members who have qualified and none of them will stay here or work in the system that the Minister and Minister of State preside over. The reason we have waiting lists and there is a lack of interventions is because the people do not exist on the ground and the same applies for the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. Many hundreds of hospital consultant posts remain unfilled and that, in turn, feeds into waiting lists and chaos, which must be addressed.

The problem lies with the Minister and Minister of State and they have failed. On 11 June, I will be on the street outside the GPO with parents to talk about unmet needs and parents in absolute extremis. How does the Minister of State think it makes me feel, as a parent, to see my child deteriorate? Instead of saying we are failing, etc. will she please issue a statement from both the Department of Health and the HSE to the effect that they have failed? If so, I can talk to the parents attending the protest and say that the Department of Health and the HSE admit that they have failed.

You have failed and we are in crisis. It is a bit like seeing all of the people outside of Dublin Airport. We, the parents and families, cannot be seen because we are a hidden community. As a parent, I know that it hard to even get out one's front-door properly dressed due to all the stress. I cannot even attend the meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters because my son's care package has failed and collapsed. The irony of the fact is that I cannot do the business, as an elected representative who has been appointed to attend joint Oireachtas committee, because of a failure by the Minister of State.

When will pay equality be restored? Please give me a timeline. Will it be June or December of this year or in 2023? I ask because medical staff will not return until that happens.

Finally, my next query is for the Department of Health. I have some sympathy for Mr. Paul Reid as a fellow Finglas man and this is not a situation entirely of the HSE's making. When will the Department of Health, and particularly the Secretary General, engage in meaningful negotiations with the Irish Hospital Consultants Association and other associations? Pay them and they will return because we have the most extraordinary graduates like the anaesthetist who manually ventilated my son. This is the only country in the world that treats its medics and clinicians in such a negative fashion. I know from my family members who work in the system, and from all of the correspondence that exists, in the HSE if a medic raises issues around patient safety or unsafe practices then he or she will be bullied. They will be denied leave to do their continuing professional development or annual leave and that is a fact. I have brought this matter to the attention of the previous Minister for Health yet no action was taken. The HSE has a toxic workplace culture. I know that Mr. Reid will be unhappy with that situation and it is a matter that he really needs to address.

The answer to all of the problems that we are talking about, and I mean this unicorn that has been called progressing disability services, is that people must be recruited. One can only recruit and retain people if they are paid properly and treated with even the minimum of dignity and respect. In terms of my son and all of the many hundreds of families who have contacted me, you have failed.