Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

The Health Service Executive is devising plans at present to transfer vital services such as accident and emergency services from Roscommon and Portiuncula hospitals, and maternity services from Ballinasloe to University College Hospital, Galway. That makes no sense, especially when services are being transferred to a hospital which is already bursting at the seams. In fact, one cannot even park a car let alone get a hospital bed. Last night, the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, was trying to spin the story that cutting services and downgrading hospitals is the only way to make savings. Why does the Minister not abolish the failed entity that is the HSE? The experiment is costing taxpayers millions and is eating up valuable front line resources. We need people on the front line to treat patients who are in need of care, not more managers to spin to the media. The failure to deliver on this basic principle is even threatening the delivery of life saving cancer services. Instead of getting a better service, we now have to fight for any service at all.

Just over a month ago a shameful and disgusting threat hung over oncology services at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe. Last night we heard about a young mother in County Galway whose chemotherapy was postponed for nine months at University College Hospital, Galway. This evening, I was informed that one of the new outreach services established at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, namely a plastic surgery day service, which is taking 24 patients per month off the University College Hospital, Galway, backlog, is to be pulled because no one is available to type up 24 letters a month. The lack of a clerical backup service is now leading to a situation where people with lumps and bumps, some of which may be cancerous, are to be put on a never-ending waiting list. How can this be allowed to happen when the Health Service Executive west employs the highest proportion of corporate staff compared to any other Health Service Executive region? So much for the commitment to the centres of excellence.

The decision to close down hospitals in Roscommon and Portiuncula make the situation at University College Hospital, Galway, even worse than it is at present. It will put people on longer waiting lists for cancer treatment, not shorter waiting lists. The Health Service Executive's own HealthStat data recently indicated that waiting times at University College Hospital, Galway, are "unsatisfactory and require urgent attention". The plans for the transfer of services from Roscommon and Portiuncula to University College Hospital, Galway, will ensure the situation will get even worse. It will result in a 50% increase in the waiting times for trolleys. The reality is that what the Government is doing is putting the lives of those who are battling cancer at risk just to raise the money needed to bail out a septic banking system.

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