Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their submission. I agree on the need for managers to direct; we need a command system. I feel that the command system has failed but I cannot put my finger on the reason for that. For instance, if people are on trolleys in a hospital I immediately ask why they are there. Is the hospital the appropriate place for them in the first instance? Should there have been an interruption? There is no sense in being vague about it and saying that primary care rests with the primary care area and they can get an equal or better service at home. Unfortunately, it does not work that way.

To what extent is the healthcare system capable of dealing with the daily influx of patients into our hospitals? We, as policymakers, were told for years that we did not need more hospital beds. We need fewer hospital beds because the patients would be dealt with on a turnaround of two or three hours. It did not happen. It is not happening, nor is it likely to happen.

We now need somebody or some system to decide to intervene as soon as the patient arrives at the hospital in an ambulance and not to leave the ambulance outside the door with the engine running for three, four, five or ten hours as the case may be, and with five or six ambulances all lined up at the same time. This is a total waste of resources. It is a risk to the patient and it is unacceptable. How can we intervene to stop that? I believe we need to find out where the logjam in the system lies. What is stopping the first patient who arrives in the hospital that morning from being processed instantly?

I know people will say that they have been triaged and they are now waiting for a bed. This is also a total contradiction to what we were told years ago when we were told there was no need for beds and yet strangely we now need 3,000 beds.

I do not know if we have the information readily available to us but we would need it at this level. We would need to know what is going on in the various hospitals throughout the country, what is holding up the queue in the morning time, and what is forcing patients to be accommodated in corridors, in waiting areas and in generally unsupervised situations in the hospitals. It is unfair to the patient, dangerous from a patient's point of view, unfair to the system and unfair to the staff.