Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. There must be proper availability of professionals in the health service no matter what kind of register is in place. The ruination of the health service has been the lack of professionals needed to do the job adequately. The capacity in hospitals must be improved and there must be proper development of primary health care to ensure the people of this island have a proper health service. The news today is that Professor Drumm has finally agreed to take on the job. I wish him well. As someone working in the health service, I have no doubt Professor Drumm will have a very good indepth knowledge of the situation.

The Medical Council registers medical practitioners. As a GP I am registered with the council and I pay my subscription and health insurance. However, this Bill does not take into account the alternative medicine practitioners. I have spoken in the House on a number of occasions about the disgraceful situation in my locality. A lady whom I call a killer continues to practice unfettered. If I do something wrong I am liable to be struck off the medical register and I am insured so that my patients can sue me. This practitioner whom I call a killer as I did before, is still carrying out her trade and already two people have died through her utter negligence of their situation and the utter failure of the system to protect vulnerable people. This Bill does nothing to address this situation.

The Government has considered this for several years by means of a working group but I do not know what they are working at. It is clear there needs to be a proper recognition of the problems. Certain people are not subject to the laws of the land and not even subject to the Coroner's Court. They have been summoned on two occasions to the Coroner's Court. The coroner investigated the case of the death of a young man who left a wife and family. This woman is practising in my area, seeing children with various illnesses and giving them placebo drugs which are useless, homoeopathic type drugs, which after analysis by the State chemical laboratory have been proved to be just sugar. This continues and I regret the Bill does not address this disgraceful situation.

Nor will this Bill do anything for the people waiting for speech therapy and different types of services because the professionals are not available. This Bill will do nothing about the embargo the Government will deny exists. That embargo exists. The people who are needed such as the speech therapists, nurses and the consultants will not be hired because of the ceiling on recruitment.

I am familiar with the case of a man awaiting urology services who would be well capable of doing a day's work, but he cannot do anything because he must put up with the discomfort of a tube that he must carry with him day and night. That man must wait in the queue for urology services and compete with people who have been waiting since 1998 because such is the waiting time for urology services. The national treatment purchase fund is of no use to him because his problem had an acute onset. A 20-minute operation would sort this man's problem. He needs professional help but this Bill has nothing to offer him.

When will this man receive treatment? If I make inquiries I will be told he will be waiting for five years. Must this man carry a bag around with him for five years? Chemical analysis shows that he is pre-cancerous and if he is to wait any longer he will probably develop cancer. He may well not survive the cancer. I have seen many men who will not survive, whose life expectancy has been shortened and who will die an early death purely because they have been left on this urology list.

The answer is not to put services into the bigger hospitals and I hope Professor Drumm gets my message. The answer is to support the local services. When people criticise the Hanly report and its recommendation for centralisation, which is just the Fitzgerald report under another name, the Government asks if they have an alternative. The alternative is to support the local services and hospitals. Where there are consultants in Mayo General Hospital there are little or no waiting lists. Where there are no consultants the lists stretch back to 1998, which is a scandal. A urologist in Mayo General Hospital would enable that man to be treated and he would not have to endure many years of discomfort. He has to get up seven or eight times at night. This is something that happens to older men in particular but this is a younger man who should not be in this position.

There are many actions the Government could take to provide services at local level. Twelve trolleys are in use in Mayo General Hospital today because there are no available beds. Some people have been waiting up to five days on trolleys. I visited the accident and emergency department in Castlebar the other day. A 90-year old man was on a trolley with tears in his eyes. I asked him what the matter was. He said he was not feeling at all well and that it was his birthday that day. A young man had chest pains and should probably be treated in the intensive care unit but he was also on a trolley. Trolleys and people were everywhere. How could the staff do their work properly when there was not sufficient room even for them to move around, never mind treat a patient? The resuscitation room for use following serious traffic accidents is jammed full of people. I wonder what would happen in an emergency. The staff would not be able to cope. I am all in favour of the registration of professionals but the professionals should be there in the first place to allow them to be registered. I hope the Government will examine this situation in Mayo General Hospital, which is like Dante's "Inferno", pure hell, pure terror, pure chaos for people who have to deal with it. I pay tribute to the nurses and doctors working under very difficult conditions. I hope the Government gives them the support they need.

How is it possible to support people at home if the facilities are not provided? I refer to centres and homes for older people. When people need to convalesce they cannot return to their area because there is no place for them to go. I know of one situation in Ballinrobe where the land has been bought for many years. In County Mayo we are waiting for completion of the design stage of a home for older people in Ballinrobe, which would cost approximately €200,000. This is not a great deal of money but the centre would give people hope for the future.

Many current difficult situations could be easily sorted out. Proof that health apartheid exists is demonstrated in that people have been forced to march to Dublin to lobby for BreastCheck services for the south and west. There is much in this Bill but it should contain much more.

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