Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

This Adjournment matter is relevant in light of the recent debate on confidence in the Minister for Health and Children. It concerns a former postman who has lived and worked all his life in Sherriff Street and who is now in considerable ill-health. The only relief he had was a couple of sessions every week with a physiotherapist. However, due to the recruitment embargo on the health services these sessions have been taken away. The man, as I said, has multiple and serious ailments such as Parkinson's disease, hypertension, back pain, ulcerated legs, depression, vertigo and an inoperable hernia. He is on 20 tablets a day. He is in pain most of the time and can scarcely walk. He relied heavily on the physiotherapy sessions he received in the Mater Hospital. Some weeks ago he received notice from the patient services department of the hospital to the effect that the service was being discontinued indefinitely. I took up the case on his behalf and spoke to the patient services department. The reply I received was asfollows:

I refer to our telephone conversation on 20th November regarding the above named patient and his enquiry as to why his Physiotherapy sessions have been put on hold.

I have contacted the Physiotherapy Manager who has advised that unfortunately due to the HSE recruitment embargo on staff we have had to redeploy physiotherapist staff assigned to the provision of out patient services to cover for the care of the older person in patient service.

We regret that this has resulted in patients such as [X] being unable to receive out patient rehabilitation at this time.

All patients impacted by this decision have been personally contacted by the therapist responsible for their care and the situation with regard to the recruitment embargo and need to redeploy this therapist explained to them.

I trust this is in order.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of people who are suffering because of the recruitment embargo. Essentially, the HSE has failed to manage its budget and, running out of money towards the end of the year, placed an embargo on recruitment to various front-line services. The Minister for Health and Children is responsible for ensuring that her policy on the HSE is implemented. She should have some sort of monitoring mechanism in place to ensure that patients do not have to suffer towards the end of the year before the following year's budget is put in place. Large-scale recruitment of management and middle-management has created a bloated bureaucracy in the HSE, and now front-line staff can no longer be recruited in the areas in which they are required.

In conclusion, this is a case in which the patient has clearly not been put first. I would like to see the Minister address this. Obviously, the Minister also needs to address a number of other cases, but in this case the person is in dire need of the services which he has been refused indefinitely.

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