Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

This Bill is too little and too late. However, it is no surprise that we are disappointed yet again by the Government when it comes to delivery of equity and the highest standards in our hard-pressed health services. I want to pay tribute to the frontline workers in the health services who must work against the odds because of the disastrous policies of this and previous Governments. I wish to state categorically my meetings with health care providers in Tralee General Hospital have shown me the nurses and doctors working there are second to none.

It is a disgrace that members of the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association have been driven to take industrial action, beginning next week, because of the failure of the Government and the HSE to ensure proper working conditions and standards of pay for these workers. I urge people to support their lunchtime protest on Monday, 26 February at Cork University Hospital, to be followed by protests at other hospitals in the coming weeks. Members of the IMPACT trade union in the health services also had to put industrial action on the agenda because of the way their workers have been treated.

When the task force report on accident and emergency services was published last month the Health Service Executive claimed a major improvement had been made in accident and emergency services. However, it then admitted it only begins to count the waiting times for patients in accident and emergency units from when consultants decide to admit them as in-patients. No account is taken of the time, often amounting to many hours, spent waiting to be seen by a consultant.

When one examines the figures, one sees no improvement whatsoever has been made. In February 2006, the highest daily figure for people on trolleys and chairs in accident and emergency units was 392. This month, February 2007, has already exceeded that figure because yesterday, 21 February, 412 people were on trolleys and chairs.

This week we had a scandalous situation at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where there were 52 people in the accident and emergency unit and the hospital appealed to people to stay away. This is the proud legacy of Fianna Fáil and the PDs who have been in office for the past decade with three Ministers with responsibility for health, all of whom failed miserably.

I will speak parochially on the provision of health services in Kerry. According to the INO, people lie on trolleys nearly every day of the week, despite claims to the contrary by Government politicians and the HSE. Kerry General Hospital's accident and emergency department is still without a consultant since the resignation of Dr. Barry O'Rourke, who resigned more than a year ago because of the shortage of a registrar and other staff. Kerry General Hospital is chronically understaffed, particularly in the accident and emergency department, and we understand a recent review of staffing levels revealed that at least 70 new staff must be recruited.

I also wish to draw attention to psychiatric waiting lists. Last December it was revealed that children may have to wait years for psychiatric treatment and that Kerry has the longest waiting lists in the country where children must wait up to four and a half years to be assessed. It is no coincidence that County Kerry has one the highest rates of suicide in the country. The fact that children and young people do not receive treatment in time is a major contributory factor in disruptive behaviour resulting from ADHD. While other issues have been raised by groups with close involvement in the area, it is nonetheless vital that those who are referred are seen within a reasonable timeframe.

Unlike most of our EU counterparts, Ireland does not have a nationwide cervical cancer screening programme whereby all women aged between 25 and 60 years are invited by the State to attend their GP or family planning clinic for a free smear test every three to five years. In 2006, the Government promised such a programme would be rolled out by 2008 under the auspices of the new national cancer screening service which was to come into being this year. Will the Government confirm that screening services will be available nationwide by 2008? Will women in every part of the State be able to avail of the service? Must women in counties such as Cork and Kerry wait several years like they had to wait for the roll out of BreastCheck?

A related issue is the length of time it takes for women to be seen and to receive the results of their smear tests. At present, the average waiting time for women to receive the results of cervical smear tests is between four and nine months whereas in countries which have national screening test programmes the average waiting time is only six weeks. This makes a massive difference to women in terms of reducing their anxiety and allowing them to access any necessary treatment if the tests prove to be positive. Therefore, it is vital that such a programme is made available in this country.

When will this Government and the Minister for Health and Children finally admit the seriousness of the problem with hospital infections such as MRSA? Why are they afraid to admit the extent of the problem? Is it because they truly believe it is not that bad, or has it more to do with hospitals being chronically overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded, and they know MRSA cannot be tackled until the problems in hospitals have been dealt with? Perhaps if the Minister was as passionate about sorting out the public health system as she is in pushing her privatisation agenda, people would not be afraid to go to hospital for fear of becoming ill. I know people are afraid to go to hospital because they fear they will contract the MRSA bug. Last evening I was in Tralee General Hospital where I met a person who had had a hip operation a number of months ago. He has unofficially been told that he has MRSA, yet the hospital will not officially confirm this. I know another person who has refused to go into hospital, despite being in need of treatment, because of a fear of contracting the bug. The Government and the Health Service Executive must face up to their responsibilities on the MRSA issue.

I have spoken with many who work in the health system and the overriding opinion they express regarding MRSA is that many hospitals do not even bother screening staff because they know that the superbug is widespread and that it would be too costly for them to eradicate it. My own daughter who works in a hospital gave birth to her baby in Holles Street prior to Christmas. She was told, after being examined, that she was an MRSA carrier. She had to go through special procedures to eradicate the bug before the baby was delivered. She had been screened nine or ten months before but was not told anything. The bug is widespread and I can say without fear of contradiction that it is the result of understaffing and the lack of attention paid to it.

We buried a great woman in Tralee this week who had met the Minister for Health and Children a few short months ago. Ellen Rowan led a campaign for almost 12 years for a community hospital for County Kerry. I am thankful she has gone to the next world knowing it will happen. She campaigned with other senior citizens for many years in order to bring this about and it is a tribute to her and the people around her, many of whom have passed away, that this will be a reality. A community hospital should be provided as a right and people should not have had to campaign endlessly to secure a service they should have been entitled to.

The rushing through of emergency legislation, while necessary to retain risk equalisation, has exposed the inequitable and inefficient way in which health services are funded. The Government has downgraded the public health system. As a result, people are being forced to take out private health insurance. This means they are paying on the double through the PAYE and PRSI system, as well as through insurance payments. There is a fear that they will not get the care they need in time within the public system. The Government's privatisation of health services, including the scandalous private hospital co-location plan, is undermining the public system.

This debacle exposes the need for radical reform of health funding. Sinn Féin proposes the immediate establishment of a health funding commission to report within a reasonable timeframe on the projected cost of the transition to an all-Ireland system of universal public health care provision. This would take into account all spending on health services under the current systems, including State funding and spending on private insurance, and make recommendations on how the State could best harness these resources in the interests of more equitable and efficient delivery.

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