James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

There will be many other services at Roscommon, including an additional ambulance. Therefore, there will be four ambulances in Roscommon during the day and three at night, two of them based in Roscommon town. There will be paramedics available in a car for Roscommon also. There will be additional diagnostics and screening, including colorectal cancer screening, that is, colonoscopies, at Roscommon. We intend to extend day surgery in order that it will not be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. but from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. It will be a 23 hour per day surgery and overnight surgery two or three days a week that will allow a much wider range of things to be done.

I find it extraordinary that people are going to big hospitals such as Galway, Beaumont and Tallaght for hernia repairs, gall bladder removals, varicose veins and other conditions that should be directed to smaller hospitals. It is our intention to have much more activity at the smaller hospitals but it will be safe. The future of Roscommon hospital is secure. There is no question of this being death by stealth or the beginning of the end. This is the beginning of a new lease of life for Roscommon.

There are now 180 vacancies for non-consultant hospital doctors and we have 200 plus medical people who have sought visas to work here. I cannot give a guarantee they will be here until they land, however, and they must also be trained to be fit for purpose. Last year, there were 150 such vacancies. I am hopeful we will end up with sufficient people to run the service over a two year period that will give them a guarantee, security of tenure, training and clinical up-skilling. It will also give us security of tenure to allow the forum to be established to report not later than the end of autumn to inform us about manpower training and to match undergraduate with postgraduate posts that are needed. It will also give a clear career path to doctors. Specialists who are qualified and to all intents and purposes could be consultants but do not have a job will be given work in this country. They will report only to a clinical director and no other consultant.

I have not had time to talk about the special delivery unit, which will certainly address a lot of the problems we have. It is my intention that Roscommon hospital will deliver safe and appropriate care, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is not the beginning of the end, as I said, but the beginning of a new lease of life.

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