Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

I should say at the outset that Cobh community hospital is a facility that is very well-regarded by the people of Cobh. I have been asked by my Labour Party colleagues on Cobh Town Council to raise this issue as a matter of urgency because there is a situation whereby the National Treatment Purchase Fund has taken over the fair deal scheme as it relates to Cobh hospital. That will have serious permutations for the cost per patient per week in that it is stated that the possible drop in fees from €1,200 to €800 per bed per week could result in a serious deficit. Obviously a deficit in funding would have an impact on the ability of the patients to remain within the hospital in the first instance, but also severely impact on the hospital's ability to take in new patients.

It is a 38-bed hospital and there are approximately 40 staff. What goes to the heart of this is the issue whereby care for our older people who are in community-based facilities is being eroded by this Government through a process of stealth. The Government's model of health care is about rolling back the State and these wonderful community-based facilities so that they may be completely and utterly subsumed into a private nursing home model, thereby rolling back the stakesholdings that communities have within these hospitals which make them the excellent facilities they are. It is all being done under the wonderful guise of HIQA rules and the fact that these institutions are older. Anything that is deemed to be older in this new paradigm we have with this Government is deemed not to be of sufficient standard.

I want to speak for hospitals such as Cobh, the welfare home in Youghal and Nazareth House in Mallow, all of which provide an excellent standard of care, but are now under threat because of the new rules that have come into play through the fair deal scheme and the new punishing HIQA standards. All I want to do here is make the case for Cobh community hospital, in that it is an excellent facility. There is a significant buy-in from the people of Cobh into this hospital. The staff coterie is very loyal to the hospital. The patients there are happy, and I would hope the Government ensures the continuation of this hospital in perpetuity, especially for the older people of Cobh who will use it, hopefully, into the future.

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