Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I am from an area even farther west than Longford, Deputy Bannon's county. Over the years, people had to use St. Luke's Hospital for services. I thank the management, staff and board of St. Luke's for the excellent job they did over the years. I spent many a sad night in the hospital. Every Wednesday night I used to go there until we got our own service in Mayo. The service was then lost to Galway and now there is a centre of excellence. I do not want to comment on the centre of excellence but on what happened in Mayo General Hospital.

I hope what is being proposed will be best for cancer services in Dublin and the rest of the country. St. Luke's hospital was run very well. It is the cleanest and kindest hospital I was ever in. The inpatients used to be dealt with during the day and the country patients and others who had to travel long journeys, and who were in the facilities on the grounds, used to be treated at night. My colleague, Deputy McGinley and I spent many nights at the hospital. I used to visit the patients from Mayo.

Some years later, the services in St. Luke's were moved to a location nearer the people in the west, which I welcomed. There was an excellent cancer service and team in Castlebar but the HSE, in its wisdom, then opened the centre of excellence in Galway. It was easier for people from the west to get to St. Luke's with their loved ones than it is to get to Galway. St. Luke's was farther but it was easier to find parking there and to get in.

Although I am sorry to see the services go from Mayo General Hospital, I hope the centre of excellence in Galway works. I hope the property in St. Luke's cannot be sold by the HSE without the permission of the Minister. I have no confidence in the HSE based on what has occurred over recent years. The increase in size of the organisation is not working. It is getting bigger and bigger and is having an increasing number of problems. This week, we heard about misdiagnoses of miscarriages. Every week there is a problem with the HSE. It is like the Government, the banks and everything else in the country in that nobody takes responsibility.

A group was set up that is very dissatisfied with what is happening in regard to St. Luke's. It was proposed that the hospital be closed and that its services be delivered from a hospital in the centre of the city. It was another idea proposed and forced through by the former Taoiseach that was not right for the health service. As Deputy Bannon said, the health service should not be about what constituency a Minister is in; it should be about what people need and where they need it. It should be a matter of what is best for the community, not what is best for the current Minister based on the location of his constituency. Basing decisions on the latter does not represent the way in which any service should be run.

Why is there such a high incidence of cancer, particularly in the west and particularly among women? I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Brady, will state whether there are any investigations into this and any statistics being compiled on cancer types and where they are prevalent. Is there any reason the incidence is higher in certain areas?

Some years ago I tabled a number of questions to the Department of Agriculture on the amount of radiation from Chernobyl and the consequent high incidence of cancer, particularly in sheep. If it was affecting animals, it was of course going to affect humans. Are the Departments of Health and Children, Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and others monitoring to determine whether there is radiation coming from various quarters, including England? Is radiation still emanating from the Ukraine?

What is the link between cancer and food? When I was in the bread business, bread used to go stale in a day. It now lasts for six weeks and develops blue mould before it goes stale. The same is the case with milk. I recently left a pint of milk in the garage at home and when I returned to it, about three weeks later, it had not gone sour but had just vapoured away. One must ask oneself whether it is good for consumption. Are we checking what is being put into food?

Why are so many dying from cancer and why are we not further down the line regarding its treatment? Although millions upon millions of euro have been invested in research and hospitals, do we investigate the cause of the high incidence of cancer in this country? This is of concern to my constituents and to me because there areas in Mayo where there are high rates of cancer. People worry about this, asking why the Government is not surveying to find out the nature and cause of the problem in certain areas in the west.

St. Luke's Hospital gave an excellent service, with a great staff. I hate that something that works is being broken and that is what will happen if St. Luke's is closed and the lands sold or developed by the HSE.

Front line staff are not being appointed but I recently saw an advertisement for four regional managers in the HSE. More managers, on huge salaries. What do these managers do? Manchester United, the most successful team in Britain, has had one manager for the past 25 years and he has got results. We have more managers in the west than there are in the entire Premier League but they cannot get the job done and no one takes responsibility when there is a problem.

I have written to the Minister of State many times about home help. This scheme has worked so why does the HSE insist on tampering with it? A constituent who gets one hour's home help per day contacted me this morning. She depends on it but the HSE is cutting it down to half an hour. A woman in Erris with no family in the area wrote to me, and I passed this letter to the Minister of State, saying she had a half an hour per day. Weekend services have been withdrawn and home help has been reduced to three days a week. She cannot feed or wash herself, she depends on the home help. How could someone withdraw that essential service? Everyone who was assessed has seen their home help hours reduced. The Minister of State should bring in the managers of the HSE to see what is happening. They will say that they must save money but they should not do it by cutting back on front line services like the home help. All they are doing is creating problems further down the line, which is exactly what will happen with St. Luke's. People who cannot look after themselves and who depend on their home help will finish up in nursing homes.

What good is that? We are far better off giving people the little bit of help to keep them in their homes. All reports on home help have shown people want to stay at home if possible. The Government is being short-sighted. This is wrong, because the service is working well. It might be costly but it is working and the Minister of State should bring in the HSE to deal with it.

There is a problem in Belmullet hospital - a hospital our emigrants paid for over the years. They raised money in Chicago, New York and Manchester for it and sent it home. They did not forget about their loved ones; they wanted them to be in a hospital that would look after them. Now the HSE is doing all it can to close that hospital. Yesterday, it closed an eight bed male ward and I doubt it will ever open again. That is wrong. It is all because of staff cutbacks and to save money. All that will happen is that those who need beds in Belmullet will have to go to Castlebar, Galway or Dublin. It does not make sense. The system was working and people were happy to be in their own area and I compliment the staff on the excellent job they have done there.

This week, we have seen the misdiagnoses of miscarriages due to the failure of equipment. If I had a car and it did not work, I would not keep it going for six months but the HSE blames the machinery for the mistakes. Will anyone take responsibility for what has happened? There is no point having an inquiry if no one pays the price for what happened. It is the same with the banks. There is no point telling us what the problems were; we must deal with the people who created the problems that we are paying for. Managers are well paid so why are they are not taking responsibility?

What has happened in the last week and to hear mothers on the radio telling their stories has been shocking. It does not reflect well on the health service, although I do not want to criticise it. I want it to work for everyone in the State. We all use it at some time so we want to see a good one. It does not work, however, when no one takes responsibility. The Minister for Health and Children has been in the job too long and has lost all control. She handed power over to the HSE and it has no responsibility to this House. That is the problem in the health service.

A bungalow in Áras Attracta in Swinford has been closed. It worked well but people are being upset and frightened because of the amalgamation. People must be shown the respect they deserve. I say to those running the health service that they must be sensitive as well as saving money. They cannot just close these units or double the numbers in them. These people are human and deserve some respect. I hope the decision in Áras Attracta will be reversed.

Westport has no hospital - the nearest hospital in Castlebar. There is now talk of weekend closure of the accident and emergency department in Mayo General Hospital and further cutbacks in services. When I was elected to the Dáil, the big issue on Mayo was the orthopaedic unit. That unit was agreed by the Government because it wanted to save its seat in the by-election and had to carry through. I take some credit myself, because I was so strong at the time that the Government thought it might not win the seat so it conceded the orthopaedic unit. Only last week, consultant Derek Bennett carried out surgery that was televised globally. That is now a centre of excellence.

The old Western Health Board did everything in its power to oppose opening the orthopaedic unit in Castlebar. People with broken bones had to travel from Belmullet to Galway for treatment but now there is a centre of excellence in Castlebar. The consultants there are to be complimented because no longer are people waiting for years for orthopaedic surgery. Over Christmas an unprecedented number of people broke bones because of the frost and Mayo General Hospital dealt with that professionally. People were treated and looked after. I am disappointed that the HSE is trying to reduce services in Mayo General Hospital instead of granting the staff there the resources they need to serve the people of County Mayo so well.

We lost the cancer services and the women were angry. They will adjudicate on that at the next general election because those women have not forgotten what was done with cancer services. This is short-sighted because in ten years time there will be more inquiries into the health services. More people will not get the services they are entitled to and they will sue the State, something that will cost a lot more money than these cutbacks save.

These cutbacks are hurting people. They are hurting the sick, the weak, the poor and the most vulnerable in society. It is wrong to attack frontline services. We should be supporting them and giving them the help and backup they need. We should be trying to keep people out of hospital rather than putting them into hospital. The latter is the policy of the Government and the HSE by closing down home help and essential services for people being cared for in their homes. These people will end up in institutions paid for by the taxpayer and the State. All we are doing is saving money now but we will pay later, which is crazy.

Cancer has affected every family in this country. I would like to see more research and resources to see what is creating the problem with cancer. I compliment the Department of Health and Children for upping its game in respect of some cancers. It has improved people's chances of surviving if cancer is caught in time. A good job has been done in respect of some cancers. Men have been left behind for the past few years with regard to prostate cancer. I am glad we are having an awareness campaign and are taking this seriously. Men do not take their health seriously but they should.

What is happening in the HSE is wrong. The Minister and the Government should examine the HSE again. It has not worked, it has failed the people of this country. The HSE wants to cut and this is not working because it puts people's lives at risk. Whatever cuts must be made should begin at the top rather than the bottom, as has been done.

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