Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a number of issues in the short time that is available and to support the amendment tabled by my colleague, Deputy McManus.

I wish to speak about accident and emergency services in Tralee General Hospital. There is a perception that the accident and emergency crisis is confined to Dublin, but I assure the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, that we have a crisis in the accident and emergency unit in Tralee General Hospital. In November last year 40 GPs picketed Tralee General Hospital. That was unprecedented for GPs. They were not looking for anything for themselves, they were trying to highlight the inadequacies and deficiencies in the hospital. They send their patients to the hospital to be looked after but — I regret to say this to Deputy Moloney — because of lack of funding their patients were not looked after as quickly as possible.

We lost our accident and emergency consultant, Mr. Seán O'Rourke, to another area because he was looking for a number of extra staff, including registrars, and they were not provided. A wonderful man has been lost to the health services in Tralee. The weekend before last the accident and emergency service in Tralee was extremely busy due to a number of accidents. Some of the people being treated did not even have the luxury of a trolley. They were standing up against the wall with IV drips in them. What is going on in the accident and emergency unit is unreal. The medical staff, porters, nurses, other staff and patients are under extreme stress because of the conditions there.

In recent weeks the Tánaiste stated that when she was growing up if one got sick during the night the GP came to the house. I assure her that the problems in accident and emergency units are not due to GPs. I also remind her that we are living in a different world. We cannot expect GPs to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week if they are to provide a proper service and have lives of their own. We cannot expect GPs to take the blame for the problems in accident and emergency services.

I speak from experience. I have been in the Dáil for 14 years and the problems with hospital beds has become acute in the past three or four years. When I entered the Dáil this was not an issue. I recently dealt with a case in which an elderly lady was to be discharged from hospital but she had nowhere to go as she had no immediate family. Her extended family pre-empted the fact that she would need to go into a nursing home and applied for a nursing home subvention. I raised this matter in the House previously. The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, was in the House on that occasion, but I will outline it again because it shows that while funding will not solve all the crises in the health service it will solve some of them if it is targeted in the right place.

The woman of whom I speak applied for the nursing home subvention on 30 November 2005. She was placed No. 467 on the waiting list. On 31 December she was No. 452 on the list and on 31 January 2006 she was No. 438. I rang this morning to find she is now No. 423. This woman does not have immediate family members but her extended family is helping out. She is currently in a nursing home. She could not remain in hospital as her needs were not of an acute nature. We should tackle this issue. Perhaps we could provide public beds in private nursing homes to allow some people who are in hospitals to go into nursing homes, or provide money for the nursing home subvention. In that way, at least those patients who are in a position to be discharged to a nursing home can be discharged.

Somebody in the Government will have to take responsibility for the health crisis. People will not accept farming it off to the HSE all the time. Funding is a political responsibility and the funding of nursing home care, extra hospital beds in community hospitals and accident and emergency registrars is vitally important. I do not accept that funding will not solve the health crisis. It will solve much of it. Plenty of money is available and the Government should stop passing the buck and deal with the issue now.

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