Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

Misdiagnosis, misinformation and miscommunication have categorised the cancer screening and treatment services at the Midland General Hospital in Portlaoise. This extraordinary level of dysfunctionalism occurred long after and despite Mr. Naughton, a surgeon in Portlaoise, writing to the Minister, Deputy Harney, in 2005. He described the diagnostic services there as "a shambles". No meaningful action was taken by the Minister to remedy this problem.

Yesterday we learned of the appalling case of a woman diagnosed with a breast tumour in March 2005 but who was not informed until nine months later, when she returned to the same hospital in pain for further diagnosis. Only then did she discover the chilling news of the diagnosis which had been known nine months earlier. Through gross negligence and unprofessional conduct, this was never communicated to her. The tumour was left untreated, the woman's life was put at risk and she died six months later.

The structures in Portlaoise are clearly not functioning and have not done so for a considerable period of time. The Minister knew all about it. We learn today about major new concerns in Cork and Galway university hospitals. This is enough reason for any responsible Minister to act honourably and resign.

The Minister, Deputy Harney, entered the Department of Health and Children with a flourish over three years ago. She was going to do the devil and all. She announced plans and promised great strides of progress within six months, then 12 months, then two years. At that stage she indicated Rome could not be built in a day. In the run up to the general election she argued that she needed a second term to make real progress, which she passionately told us last night she would see through.

What will the Minister see through and at what cost to the patient? Is it the withdrawal, due to the current staffing embargo, of essential physiotherapy services to a former postman on Sheriff Street who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, hypertension, back pain, ulcerated legs, depression, vertigo, an inoperable hernia in his chest, and who is on 20 tablets a day? His essential and necessary physiotherapy has now been withdrawn completely and indefinitely because there is no staff to deal with him in the Mater Hospital. That has been put in writing from the services section to me.

Are we to have more of the misleading HSE daily statistics, which do not include busy weekends and omit the time patients spend in the accident and emergency department prior to diagnosis? These statistics state that patients have left the accident and emergency department when they are simply transferred to an annex, a sort of limbo euphemistically described as an admissions lounge.

Accident and emergency department statistics are now deftly massaged for public consumption but patients are no closer to a bed in a hospital ward. Is it to continue to be the Minister's assertion that the 3,000 beds taken out of the hospital system are not needed, although our population is growing and ageing? At the same time the Minister is brazenly replacing those beds with beds in co-located private hospitals on public hospital grounds.

Is it to be the so-called fair deal proposals due to be implemented in January that will cost residents of nursing homes 80% of their disposable income during their life and up to 15% of the value of their estate after their death? Is it to be the refusal of a centre of excellence for the entire population of the north west?

If these are the plans, policies and practices that the Minister, Deputy Harney, wants more time to implement, it is definitely time for her to go.

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