James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy. The beds in the unit were designated specifically for the rehabilitation of stroke patients. A recent audit conducted by the Irish Heart Foundation exposed how utterly insufficient hospital services are for stroke patients nationally. Although approximately 10,000 acute stroke patients were admitted to hospital in 2005, the audit found that there are only 12 designated stroke beds in our hospitals nationally. It also found that only one hospital, representing 3% of relevant Irish hospitals, has a stroke unit, compared to 91% of hospitals in the UK. Despite the revelation of these appalling statistics the Minister, Deputy Harney, thinks it is acceptable to remove what little dedicated services exist for stroke patients.

The HSE now plans to move these patients to other units on the hospital campus where there are vacant beds. These patients will not now have access to multi-disciplinary rehabilitative care that is stroke specific and more likely to meet their needs. How does this fit in with a drive for centres of excellence or is this a policy that is only applicable when it leads to savings in the short term but will cost more in the long term both financially and in terms of patient suffering? Some 350 to 500 deaths a year could be avoided if there was proper investment in stroke care but, yet again, it is the patient who is punished.

We are told an orthopaedic unit of 24 beds is also proposed for closure shortly in Galway. Despite the fact that two orthopaedic surgeons were recently added to the team, making a complement of eight, they will not be able to operate because patients would have nowhere to go after their procedure. The saying "penny wise and pound foolish" springs to mind.

Meanwhile, a surgical ward with 17 beds, which was closed in Limerick Regional Hospital and was due to reopen, remains closed. The hospital, like others, is unable to recruit extra agency nurses, as an outright ban on recruitment was put in place by the HSE. Although the HSE in the mid-west claims that there are already enough nurses in the hospital to reopen the ward, complying with such an order is likely to make staffing levels in other areas unsafe. The result is that patients are punished.

The HSE cutbacks have also affected training provided by much needed suicide resource officers. Such officers regularly organise applied suicide intervention skills training courses around the country to teachers, gardaí, youth workers and other members of the community. However, they have been instructed that they are no longer allowed to book venues for such courses. So we can have hotels booked for HSE interviews for middle management, but space cannot be booked to train people in suicide prevention.

See this speech in context