Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

This is to be done without a single additional bed being provided in Cavan. The HSE's plan is fraudulent in the extreme. It claims that the net loss of 56 hospital beds in Cavan and Monaghan and the north-east region will be compensated for by greater provision of non-acute care, rehabilitation, step-down beds and respite care, but these are the services that are being slashed by the HSE in its current wave of cutbacks. It is closing a 12-bed respite unit in St. Oliver Plunkett Hospital in Dundalk. That is being replicated across the country, notably in respect of the 12 respite beds being cut in Cherry Orchard Hospital in Dublin.

I warn the Minister and her colleagues that the death threat to Monaghan General Hospital will be resisted. We will not allow a hospital that has served our community for generations to be destroyed by this Government. She can be sure this is not the last she will hear of this. People throughout the country should take note of the template she intends visiting on other local hospitals. Shame on the Minister and the Minister of State.

Turning to the main substance of the motion, I commend the Labour Deputies on highlighting neurological needs. The huge gaps in the provision of neurological services in Ireland were identified by an expert panel, together with the Neurological Association of Ireland, in three standards of care documents published between 1999 and 2002 and a series of far-reaching recommendations were generated. These identified a number of problems regarding neurological services, including: long waiting times for initial diagnosis and follow up due to a chronic shortage of neurologists; lack of resources for provision of multidisciplinary care needed by those with neurological conditions, palliative and respite care and co-ordinated follow up in the community; and problems in accessing transport, health care, employment and information about their condition for those with neurological conditions. The documents make a series of recommendations which focus on changes in the health sector to meet the needs of those with neurological conditions, as well as the wider issues of access to information, support, employment and transport. As the motion makes clear, however, progress on these vital recommendations has been minimal.

In January 2006, after an inquest on a woman who died during an operation in Beaumont Hospital's neurosurgery centre, Professor Ciarán Bolger, head of research and development in neurosurgery at Beaumont and head of clinical neurosurgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, spoke out. He stated that approximately 200 patients throughout the country were on an urgent waiting list for a bed at the national neurosurgery centre in Beaumont. The condition of ten of those patients was life-threatening. He also stated that the computer guide system in the operating theatre had broken down during five of the last six neurosurgery procedures which he had carried out in Beaumont. While this made the operations more difficult, the procedures had to continue. According to the professor, various other machines used in the clinic also regularly break down. That happened under the Minister's watch. The buck stops with her for health care and no amount of buck passing to the HSE will exonerate her from responsibility for these matters.

There has been no increase in the number of neurosurgeons working in the health service in 25 years, despite a dramatic increase in the population.

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