Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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On the capacity of the health service at present, in the last five years there have been 500,000 adverse incidents in the HSE. Some 500,000 people have been injured as a result of an action taken in the HSE. In that five years, approximately 3,150 people have been killed in the HSE as a result of some kind of accident or something that was done wrong in the HSE. The previous Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, got a research document written to say there was a direct correlation between understaffing, pressure on staff and negative outcomes in terms of people's health and so on. It is understandable that in respect of the 3,157 people who have died in the HSE over the last five years, a significant contributor to those deaths was staff being unable to deliver their proper job because of the pressure they are under.

Last year, 115,000 people were sick enough to go to an accident and emergency department but had to wait so long that they left without being treated. That is an incredible thing when we think about it. Someone so ill presented, sat in an accident and emergency department for hours, and because it was such a long wait time, left and went home. That is a reflection on the capacity issues we have in the hospitals. In 2019, 757 people died before an ambulance got to them. Last year it was 927 people who died before an ambulance got to them. The figures for the wait time of an ambulance waiting at a hospital, trying to deliver patients to the accident and emergency department are going up all the time, because of the pressures in accident and emergency departments. About 34% of ambulances now spend over an hour waiting to deliver their patients before they can go out. In Drogheda last Christmas, there were 11 ambulances waiting outside the accident and emergency department, some of them for five or six hours. As a result there were no ambulances available for the whole region during that period.

There are approximately 830,000 on hospital waiting lists at the moment. Their illnesses are getting worse, they are less able to live their lives, they are in more pain. They need more invasive treatment which is more costly in the long run. It is fair to say that while there is wonderful work happening for those who manage to get into the HSE and get treatment, the HSE's delivery of health services, because of capacity constraints at least, is a disaster. Those capacity constraints exist either because there is not enough funding or because there is waste and bureaucracy. Mr. Moloney's Department is saying it has enough funding to do this. Is the Department saying we need to get rid of waste and bureaucracy to achieve the capacity we need to deliver for the sizable cohort of people who are on the wrong side of that capacity constraint?