Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Last week, bearing in mind that Deputy Bertie Ahern will not be Taoiseach for much longer, I raised with the Tánaiste the case of a 76 year old patient with Alzheimer's disease who was on a trolley in the Mater Hospital for four days. The Tánaiste dismissed my point as being facile and simplistic. I find this extraordinary if it is the new philosophy in Fianna Fáil. It is neither facile nor simplistic and the circumstances described are experienced by hundreds of patients in accident and emergency units every day.

I make no apology for bringing to Members' attention a case brought to the attention of Deputy James Reilly. Relevant lines of a letter sent by the mother of a 13 year old read:

Our 13 year old daughter suffers from depression and anxiety and last week took an overdose for the second time. We met with the medical team and they explained to us that she was at high risk of harming herself and needed to be hospitalised. They explained that she needed to be admitted to Warrenstown or St. John of God's. I cried but the worst was yet to come when they told us that we would have to wait four to six weeks for a bed. Today her mood is the lowest I have experienced yet. She needs to be hospitalised but there is still no bed available in Warrenstown or St. John of God's

That is neither facile nor simplistic. The family, one of hundreds, must live with those circumstances every minute of every day. Does the Taoiseach not feel a sense of guilt that, in spite of expenditure of €15 billion on the health system, a depressed 13 year old young girl with the potential to self-harm cannot be given a bed in a hospital for the next four to six weeks? We remember other tragic cases of people who had to wait for treatment and who are unfortunately no longer with us. How can a young girl so desperately in need of attention be left in circumstances on foot of which her distraught parents must refer her case to the Minister for Health and Children and Deputy James Reilly?

Is this not symptomatic of the circumstances in which the HSE is faced with a deficit of €300 million and in which the Minister for Health and Children is clearly and patently unable to deal with the crisis that is now spreading through the veins of the health system like wildfire? Is this not symptomatic of all the cutbacks that leave a 13 year old defenceless in circumstances in which the State is unable to come to her assistance? Can the Taoiseach indicate whether further cutbacks are coming down the line under the watch of the Minister for Health and Children through this monstrosity that has been created in the HSE?

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