Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Labour)

I thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for the opportunity to speak on this matter. As always, it is a great honour to speak in the House. Before getting to my primary point, however, what really galled me today was to see the Fianna Fáil backbenchers laughing at the notion that they had handed over a destroyed economy to the new Government and the people of Ireland. There is nothing less amusing than what they have left the people of this country with and that is their legacy.

The Government's only option is to do the best it can with the disastrous situation that has been left by Fianna Fáil and its neo-liberal friends in the last Administration. It is important to make this point regarding Roscommon. We are all aware that the Roscommon accident and emergency department will be replaced by an emergency care centre, which will operate between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., seven days a week.

In recent weeks, we have heard a lot of scaremongering about the delivery of emergency medical care in Roscommon and the safety of patients. Anyone taking part in such scaremongering is doing a great disservice to the people of Roscommon, as well as a disservice to the people of my own County Galway, who are being led to believe these decisions concerning Roscommon are being made to save money. The reality, however, is that the decisions are being taken to save lives.

We should ask ourselves what really lies behind the term "accident and emergency". What is in a name? It does not take too much research to uncover the fact that many of the multidisciplinary services that fall under what we understand to be an accident and emergency term, do not actually exist in Roscommon and never did. There are no orthopaedic, obstetric or paediatric facilities there. One simply does not go to Roscommon hospital for those medical services. If someone was to fall and break a leg, they would not go to Roscommon. If I were in Roscommon and had a sick child, I would not take him or her to Roscommon County Hospital because it does not have a paediatric unit. I would go to where the services were. We are fighting here over a title. Let us be clear: this is not a downgrading because the accident and emergency department at Roscommon County Hospital is not and never was a fully functional unit. The notion of having no accident and emergency department gives the impression that the service was available in the first instance. As I stated, in this instance the term "accident and emergency" does not honestly reflect the services available at Roscommon County Hospital.

This initiative is about patient outcomes and the necessity to streamline and modernise services to make the Roscommon County Hospital more efficient and effective. General practitioners will be available from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., while a medical emergency unit will be operational between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. There will be four full-time ambulances and an advanced paramedic medical team based in Roscommon on a 24-7 basis, which I envy. These will deal not with patient transfers but with emergency medical calls. Roscommon County Hospital is and will remain safe if this is done in the correct manner. The goal is to match patient needs with appropriate services. The decision of an emergency medical technician on the side of the road in the event of a road traffic accident is best in terms of patient need. Case by case judgment by emergency service workers will always be required. Twelve additional emergency medical technicians appointed to assess patients in the event of unforeseen circumstances will decide what service a person requires, consider the specialties, supply all of the information to the necessary medical facility and make a decision based on the best possible outcome for the person concerned.

The population of Roscommon is more than 63,000. According to the Western Regional Authority, the population will grow by approximately 10,000 over the course of the next ten years, bringing it to approximately 73,000. This will, no doubt, put extra pressure on Roscommon County Hospital and surrounding medical facilities, which is all the more reason to commence modernisation and ensure emergency service operations in Roscommon and the surrounding region will be maintained. Protesting will not save lives in Roscommon. It will not result in medical solutions to the problem. Having said that, I completely understand the reason people are angry, but this was problem was caused by the previous Administration. We have limited resources and must do the best with what we have. The Government is making the best decisions to ensure teh best outcomes for the people of Roscommon in the context of the future of Roscommon County Hospital.

See this speech in context