Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses and thank them for this morning's presentation. It is something I have spoken about as far back as last November in the wake of what we had seen of Covid-19 at that stage. I spoke particularly of the need to superimpose on the system a way of dealing with the health services generally similar to what we had done with Covid-19.

I have a number of questions I wish to put. I will take written answers but I will require specific written answers in each case. To what extent has a profile been created in respect of each region throughout the country, regardless of location, whether it takes in cities or rural areas? That is important if we are in the business of providing services to suit the region.

To what extent has the Health Service Executive worked on the creation of acceptable working conditions? Over the past couple of years we have had references again and again to unacceptable or unattractive working conditions. How have we addressed that? Have we addressed it satisfactorily or sufficiently? Do we have the answers?

I will speak to waiting lists and times. I realise that we are speaking about proposals to be implemented and put in place in approximately two years. Do we have the capacity to clear our waiting lists in those two years? Before Covid-19 we had a waiting list system and that is why we have a really huge waiting list now. Those lists have got longer. What have we done in the meantime to reduce those waiting lists completely by emergency measures if necessary and remove them altogether inside of those two years? Is that part of the process and how will it manifest?

We have received numerous complaints about mental health services in all our constituencies, with no exceptions. This takes in both residential and emergency services, accommodation and treatment, which is just appalling in some areas. To what extent have we addressed that particular issue, particularly community healthcare organisation, CHO, 7 in my area? The Chairman mentioned we should not be specific to the areas I represent and I do not intend to do so. In parliamentary questions I do not address issues from a local standpoint but in order to deal with matters, we must show progress in all the local areas at the same time. Otherwise, we are putting ourselves at a distance.

People in the regions must know what is going on. To what extent has the structure improved, particularly the linkages between the regions and the HSE? How is the process working now? It was not working for many years.

When is the board of the HSE alerted to the concerns, overcrowding and the other issues that members have brought up at these meetings and people have brought to its attention?

I digress for a second in relation to the need for changes and the waiting times on trolleys. A waiting time on a trolley, no matter where the trolley is located is of no benefit. There is no benefit for the patient because the patient is still waiting. Waiting for what? It is like Waiting for Godot. We need to get ahead of it, be out front of it and to be putting down the markers now. Related to that, I had occasion in the past couple of weeks to intervene in a couple of very similar cases that represented patients waiting on trolleys for one, two, three, four and even five days. At the end of that, the patient had to be removed from the public system and go to a private system where within three or four hours they had a bed and a full-scale diagnosis. Nothing got done in the public system. In fact, the patient had a serious condition. I could mention the areas but I am not going to do that. It could be any area. There are they same replies.