Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for coming before the committee and for setting out a comprehensive plan to deal with challenges facing all our hospitals in the coming months. There are problems which, if they were resolved, it would deal with some of the issues arising in hospitals. For instance, I have come across hospitals where consultants cannot hold clinics because nursing staff are not available. Consultants are prepared to hold the clinics, even if nurses are not available but care assistants are available to assist at those clinics.

I received a reply to a parliamentary question about the number of consultants looking for category C contracts. A category C contract means a consultant can work outside the HSE hospital in a private hospital. One of the reasons consultants tell me they are applying for category C contracts is that they cannot get access to theatres in HSE hospitals.

My third question relates to the number of hospitals where there is a challenge in theatres. In some hospitals, no patient is allowed to enter theatre after 4 p.m. I fully understand that some staff want to leave at 5 o'clock because they have children to collect etc., but surely the hospital can restructure so that staff start at 8 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m. and perhaps other staff start at 12 noon and finish at 8 p.m. in order that theatres could continue.

They are three issues that arise that could help to deal with the challenges in hospitals. I was speaking to one consultant who only has a half day per week in theatre and tries to do three operations in the afternoon. Many weeks, one of the three operations is cancelled because the staff are unable to get the patient into theatre by 4 p.m. That means the person waiting for the operation is occupying a bed, the operation does not go ahead, and the person has to be discharged and come back on another date to go through the whole procedure again. What are we doing to deal with the existing logjams?