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

Something came to my attention there. For the patients who have had to access private treatment, it was not without financial pain as well as rest of the anxiety and stress that goes with it. Many of those people got themselves into an awful lot of debt as a result of being forced to go that route in order to address the issue they saw with their child at that particular time and they saw no other way to do so. I am not at all opposed to the purchase of treatment in the event of that treatment being available in whatever sector, be it public, private or whatever, but let us have it. Whether it be physical pain or financial pain, we need to be alert to the fact there is a means of resolving the problem.

As another point in general with the purchase of treatment, I have dealt with quite a number of patients in recent times who had to get treatment, such as cataract treatment, in a hurry. They had to get treatment in a hurry because they were going blind. They could not see the door before them. They could not drive or do anything. To an elderly person who may be living alone, that is quite a problem.

The problem arises afterwards. They get the emergency treatment and they go to the bank and get a loan, based on their pension or whatever the case may be. The treatment is 100% successful and, incidentally, it is readily available in this country in all areas without exception but the system will not pay for it even though it is built in, because they did not get approval beforehand. If you look at the situation with your family's health, and there is something coming down that track that is becoming inevitably worse and you or your child are becoming more and more vulnerable, there is a need to get onto it now and not next year, and to not file a report and to avoid dealing with the issue. I support the parents who have tried to resolve those problems, albeit at a high financial cost. That cost does not go away and has an ongoing effect on the well-being of that family over a long time.