Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

The Government will be leaving office in a few months having presided over the greatest chaos in the health service since the foundation of the State. When people look back on the legacy of the Government, it will stand indicted for not providing the people with a decent health service, spanning both the public and private sectors.

What is happening at Tralee General Hospital, or Kerry General Hospital as it is now called, is a microcosm of the rest of the country and I will refer to it briefly. Kerry General Hospital is seriously understaffed by comparison with hospitals of its size in the rest of the country. It is now regarded as a band 1 hospital and it is really staffed and equipped to meet the needs of people 25 years ago. The population of Kerry is growing, people are getting older, there are more cases of cancer and more bones broken, and there are less services available for those people.

Kerry General Hospital depends considerably on student nurses. As a result the regular staff are suffering from stress and losing time through sickness etc., and they are very fed up at this point.

I am informed that in the ongoing review the nursing staffing levels of Tralee hospital will be found to be down by between 60 and 80 nurses. That is a really serious indictment. It is affecting the service that the hospital and the nurses themselves would like to provide the population of Kerry.

The accident and emergency department in Tralee hospital was built to provide for a throughput of approximately 15,000 patients and currently the throughput is approximately 31,000. It has a temporary locum consultant. He will be leaving at the end of March and there will be no consultant left. There is no registrar in the accident and emergency department in Tralee hospital. There are five senior house doctors who are trainees. The locum is there for only 33 hours a week. There is no one present to guide these young trainees, who are making serious decisions. If there is not a consultant upstairs, they have no one with whom to consult. As a result, I understand that one of the senior house doctors has written to the Health Service Executive outlining his concern for his position in case anything should go wrong.

Tullamore Hospital, which is the same size as Kerry General Hospital, has an accident and emergency consultant, who left Kerry to take up that post, and six registrars. In Kerry General Hospital, there are five senior house doctors. That speaks for itself. The service can not be given in Kerry as it is given in other parts of the country. In any case there should be two consultants in Kerry General Hospital. I understand an accident and emergency department was opened recently in Cashel, where two consultants were appointed.

I refer to the cleaning staff issue in the accident and emergency department at Kerry General Hospital. Currently the department has a temporary cleaner who works three hours a day. She is shared with other departments in the hospital. With the MRSA bug, it is not acceptable that the accident and emergency department has a cleaner for just three hours a day. If there is a spillage or somebody gets sick overnight, they call on staff from the rest of the hospital and the nurses themselves do the cleaning. Morale is low at present.

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