Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing this matter to be debated. There is great concern in County Louth for the future of its acute hospitals. This concern is accentuated by the lack of consultation between the Health Service Executive and hospital management, people working in hospitals, public representatives and the public in general. There is a real fear, due to leaks of reported meetings of the HSE in The Irish Times and stories in The Sunday Business Post about whether there would be one new hospital, no new hospital or whether hospitals would close. The only we thing we know is that this report is in the hands of the HSE and I ask the Minister to publish its content.

The report is by Teamwork Management Services and is entitled Safety and Achieving Better Standards — An Action Plan for Health Services in the North East. The report has been published in a climate where significant cuts were announced this morning on the national airwaves to the acute hospitals in the north-east region. I express my concern at the fact there will be no new developments at Louth County Hospital or at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda; that the proposal to appoint a new oncologist in Drogheda may not go ahead to save €600,000 in the HSE; that there will be a ban on recruiting agency nurses, which will be under very strict rules; and that MRSA sufferers will now be removed from private rooms and placed in rooms with fellow MRSA sufferers. Is this an improvement in services? Does this improve patient safety? Will this achieve better standards? It clearly will not do so. Maintenance will be reduced by almost €500,000 in the acute hospitals in Drogheda and Dundalk. At what price are these cutbacks taking place? It has also been announced that equipment will not be replaced. Renal dialysis in Cavan is also under challenge.

The health services are in an absolute mess. The Minister and the Minister of State could not care less about it and are not funding services in the north east. It now looks like they want to close a number of hospitals in the region. We believe that all the acute hospitals should be kept open in the north east, which means not closing the hospitals in Dundalk and Drogheda. This report was carried out with no consultation with hospital staff. If administrators were not in the hospitals, the staff were not spoken to. There is no transparency and no openness in the HSE. I ask the Minister to publish this report immediately so we can discuss this outcome.

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