Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Nobody living here can fail to realise that there is a serious crisis in the health service. It is sad that families have to contact Deputies on a daily basis to find hospital beds so that loved ones can be moved from trolleys. In my constituency, Mayo, there have been ongoing problems of people waiting on trolleys. It is a disgrace that when the people who pay their taxes need a hospital bed, they have to spend days on trolleys waiting. We never had as much money as we do now. As I said ten years ago as a Fine Gael deputy spokesman, if the managements of hospitals are unable to do the job, we should sack them all and start again. We are worse off today than we were ten years ago because services have deteriorated.

I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy O'Malley, is here because he has responsibility for the elderly. I have been contacted by many people who are vulnerable because their loved ones have been told to leave hospital. People over 70 years of age are put into State beds but, before they are there 24 hours, they are pressured to move to private nursing homes. These patients, with no resources, are being bullied by the health system. I told the family of one such patient that the law of the land provides that a person over 70 years of age in need of a hospital bed and in possession of a medical card is entitled to that bed. The patient in question was told to move to the private sector and was described last week as fit to leave hospital. However, the patient died last Tuesday and is now buried. Why was the State trying to force that person out of a bed? We cannot have a situation in which we want people to leave hospital beds when they need to be there.

For more than ten years, the people of Ballinrobe have been waiting for a nursing home but the State will not provide the necessary money. We cannot say we need to free up beds in hospitals if we do not provide step down beds for patients. How many people have contacted the Members of this House with regard to loved ones who need two or three weeks of physiotherapy? Families know that if they bring their loved ones home, they will have to wait a further two years for treatment but all they want is to look after their loved ones and to bring them home.

I blame the Government for the fact that my county did not use the winter initiative scheme, despite drawing money from the Department for that purpose. If a scheme is put in place, the Tánaiste should instruct Mayo General Hospital to make use of it. She should be strong enough to say that the time has come to provide more step down facilities.

I also blame the Government for the problems that have arisen with regard to home help services. We are told to keep our loved ones at home and that support will be provided. I know of a young man with four children whose wife died of cancer. He had seven hours of home help per day but the service was reduced by four hours last week. The helper now works from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and the four little children coming home from school will neither have a mother or a father, who is trying to keep his job, from 12.30 p.m. until 9.30 the following morning. That is the kind of health service we have here.

Many people will enjoy themselves in Punchestown today. Money is made available for that industry and for the builders but not for the people who need it the most.

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