Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)

I thank the United Left Alliance, ULA, for submitting this comprehensive and well considered motion. The Members should be congratulated.

The motion refers to a recent announcement regarding the impending closure of the accident and emergency unit at South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital. While the announcement was being made, the HSE insisted there would be no loss of accident and emergency services in Cork. The plan announced, which also involves the transfer of orthopaedic services from St. Mary's Hospital to the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital, is wrong. Under the proposal, the accident and emergency department at the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital will revert to a 12-hour service in December with full closure in April. That will mean that 15,000 patients who use the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital every year will have to make alternative arrangements.

A HSE manager in the Cork region, Ger Reaney, told us that by next April Cork University Hospital, CUH, will able to cater for the increase in emergency demand resulting from the closure of the department in the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital. CUH has 48,000 patients a year going through its accident and emergency department. The HSE claims that it can cater for up to 60,000 patients a year. If the Minister were to ask anyone in Cork if the CUH could cater for another 12,000 patients every year, he would be laughed out of the city. Yesterday, there were 23 people on trolleys in the accident and emergency department in the CUH, yet we are supposed to believe that it can cater for an additional 32 people a day on average.

One of the arguments put forward by the HSE and the Department regarding the closure of the department in the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital hangs on a vague proposal to open a new urgent care centre at St. Mary's Hospital. Only a few weeks ago when we discussed the orthopaedic hospital, I asked what services would be provided in the hospital to replace the orthopaedic services and at that stage there was no definitive plan in place. However, when we have an announcement on the closure of the accident and emergency department in the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital, the promise of an urgent care centre is being dangled. If the Minister is asking the people of Cork to believe that they will get an urgent care centre in the orthopaedic hospital when only a few months ago members of his party gave cast iron guarantees that the transfer of orthopaedic services from St. Mary's Hospital would not go ahead, he is coding himself.

Some 88,000 people currently attend the three accident and emergency departments in Cork. They are overcrowded, operate under intense pressure and are bursting at the seams to cope with the demand. The Government has put forward the solution that it will close one fully operational accident and emergency department with the promise of an urgent care centre to replace it but no definitive timeline has been given as to when it will open, if it will open at all.

The whole debacle reminds me of the film "Downfall". I do not know if the Minister saw it but it is set in 1945 at the end of World War II and all the German generals are inside in a bunker strategising, plotting and moving imaginary divisions on a map from one area to another. I have visions of the Minister in a bunker in the Department of Health with his officials moving imaginary services-----

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