Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I would like the officials of the Minister of State to follow up on the matter I now raise. The "Prime Time" programme showed quite shocking procedures at the Leas Cross nursing home but I am given to understand that the director of that nursing home sought specialist help to deal with the individual with multiple pressure sores. The recommendation from the specialist was that a certain course of dressings should be sought. The nursing home approached the health board to get sanction to purchase the dressings because the patient in question was a public patient. I understand that the health board told the director of nursing that the dressings would not be cost-effective and would not sanction the funding needed.

This is an important issue. If that patient had been a private patient, the sores would have been dealt with, but because he was a public patient, they were not dealt with. This method of purchasing dressings in nursing homes is a sham. If the individual were at home in a private house, he would have had access to the correct dressings. I would like the officials to check that. That is the other story to be told here, involving the refusal of the health authority, under the control of this Government, to sanction dressings for that gentleman who appeared on television with multiple pressure sores.

See this speech in context