Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I wish to give two minutes of my time to Deputy Healy.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I have raised the issue of Kerry General Hospital in this House on numerous occasions over the past three or four years but with little success. What has been said by Kerry doctors and representatives must have fallen on deaf ears because the situation there has deteriorated. When the hospital was opened in 1984 it had a throughput of 13,500 patients. Now it has a throughput of over 30,000, approximately 100 per day. The staffing level has increased to some extent but the senior medical staff has not increased apart from the appointment of senior house doctors. Kerry General Hospital has five senior house officers, SHOs, but no registrars and only a temporary consultant.

In 2003 a full-time accident and emergency consultant was appointed to Kerry General Hospital for the first time. In neighbouring County Cork, which has a little over double the population of Kerry, there are five accident and emergency consultants. The one consultant at Kerry General Hospital has left. Although he indicated over a year ago to the HSE that he was leaving, no full-time replacement has been appointed. There is a temporary locum there until May and after that a person will be appointed for six months. That is no way to treat the people of Kerry. The equivalent of approximately 28 nurses look after the accident and emergency department in Kerry. Just four of those are available after 5 p.m. and with no increase for the summer months, when the population of Kerry will more than double, those four nurses will look after an increasing number of patients, including an increasing number of night-time patients.

The Minister and the Minister of State appear to have no function in accident and emergency. They have washed their hands of it. It is disingenuous to blame the doctors, who must also live. An impression is being created through a deliberate campaign that doctors are expected to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which not even politicians do. There are people on this side of the House called "shinners" but the "spinners" are on the other side of the House. There is a deliberate campaign against the doctors of this country and it is unfair. After 5 p.m. there is only one senior house doctor in Kerry General Hospital and that doctor may have to make serious decisions. It is only a matter of time before something serious happens and when it does, who will be liable? I have warned the Minister. What has happened in Kerry is a disgrace. I am echoing what other speakers are saying. What is happening in accident and emergency departments is a disgrace and the Government is abdicating responsibility for it.

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