James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

We have only ten neurosurgeons, which is the lowest in Europe. I was in Belfast two days ago and was told that Northern Ireland had 14 with a population one third of ours. That may or may not be accurate.

I have a personal knowledge of this in that a friend and colleague of mine with a brain tumour waited four weeks to get into Beaumont Hospital. I had a patient from Wexford who last year was told to arrive at Beaumont on a specific day because she had a recurrence of her symptoms following brain tumour removal three years earlier and it quite obviously had returned. She got her husband to take three weeks off work to mind their seven children and the night before she was due to go to the hospital she was advised that no bed was available. That is the reality for people. The consultant to whom I spoke at that time said he is faced with having to leave a patient with a brain tumour at home because somebody else who is unconscious must be treated as an absolute emergency.

We are streets behind and the investment has not been made. I was going to confine my comments to neurosurgery, but the Minister mentioned neurology. I have a comparative list of neurologists per head of population that includes Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Britain and Ireland. We used to have one per 300,000. We now have one per 210,000. The next worst is the UK with one per 164,000. France has one per 39,000. We have not been employing the consultants. Of the 245 consultant posts approved since 2008, of which only 115 are new posts and 154 have been advertised, how many are for consultant neurosurgeons? When will the HSE strategic review of neurology and clinical neurophysiology completed in 2007 be published?

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