Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I thank Fine Gael for ensuring this motion was jointly proposed by the Labour Party and Fine Gael. The motion sets out a road map for a Government that has lost its way. Instead of consistency, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have lurched alarmingly in different directions on health policy. Instead of commitments made honourably, the two Government parties spewed out promises that were dishonoured within months of the last election. There were to be no cutbacks, an end to waiting lists, 200,000 medical cards, 200,000 GP-only cards and 3,000 acute hospital beds. The reality is a shameful record. In 2002 the Government health strategy promised "immediate benefits for substantial numbers of people and the construction of a health system which in little more than half a decade will be immeasurably improved". I remind the Minister that we have reached that half decade and no one believes that the promised improvements have materialised.

On the contrary there is a low level of morale among staff and a high level of anxiety among patients about many aspects of the health service. More than anything there is an aching need for reassurance in the public psyche. Many people have simply lost faith that the immeasurable improvements will ever be made. The Government has clearly failed in the task it set itself but those on this side of the House have not. For the first time well in advance of an election, two major political parties in opposition have engaged in the preparation of a major health plan. It is a significant initiative which provides the springboard for a new and better Government capable of meeting the needs of patients and those who care for them.

I remind the House of the record: of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital inquiry report, the report on the death of Mr. Pat Joe Walsh, the report on the death of Mr. Peter McKenna, the report on the death of Róisín Ruddle and the Leas Cross report. These are only some of the reports that have examined the institutional abuse of elderly, frail people, the surgical mutilation of young women and the death of a middle-aged man who bled to death in a ward of a modern Irish hospital.

There is also the anecdotal evidence that arrives on our desks on a regular basis. I refer to the patient who was not informed he had contracted MRSA and whose family only discovered the fact when it appeared on the death certificate, the patient who had been waiting more than five months for open heart surgery because he did not have private health insurance and the case with which we are all familiar, the tragic case of Rosie from Kilkenny whose life has been so tragically foreshortened. The evening news today was full of stories about health. One of the issues not referred to by Deputy Twomey is the problem of nursing shortages in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. I refer to paediatric nurses not in place, accident and emergency patients on trolleys and staff members concerned about the risk to patients.

Last March, the Minister was forced into declaring a national emergency with regard to the accident and emergency departments around the country when it emerged that 500 people were on trolleys. There has been ongoing disagreement about the accurate and exact number of people on trolleys. Last night I telephoned the person in charge of the accident and emergency department in a major Dublin hospital. She painted a picture which is radically different from the bulletins issued by the HSE on a regular basis which state that things are getting much better. A manager of an accident and emergency department is under fierce pressure because some patients on trolleys never appear in the HSE statements as they have not been seen by a doctor. I refer to the case of one old lady who was there from morning to night, with no food and sitting in a wheelchair, and at 11 p.m. she still had not been seen by a doctor. That woman will never appear on a HSE bulletin because only people who have been seen by a doctor and are waiting for a bed will be counted on the trolley watch.

Those working in accident and emergency departments face considerable pressures. Speaking on "Prime Time" last month, Dr. John McInerney, emergency medicine consultant at the Mater hospital, said, "Over recent months there has been a regression to the same problem as last year". A new trend has emerged as a result of the concentration on shortening the time of accident and emergency patients on trolleys. The cancellation of elective procedures is escalating. The Taoiseach, when asked, refuses to countenance the word "cancellation", but for anybody being told to wait for cancer care or a heart operation there is no other description that matches their experience of finding that all the intensive care beds are full. At a time when St. James's Hospital did not have enough intensive care beds to meet its needs and major procedures were cancelled, intensive care beds in another Dublin hospital were lying idle. They had not been commissioned owing to a lack of staff and resources.

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