Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

This Government is delivering on these objectives in a planned and strategic manner, and will continue to do so. Difficult political decisions recognise the clinical realities that will produce better outcomes for patients. These include the reform of emergency departments; the changes in work practices and structures that are already producing a modern, highly trained, more efficient pre-hospital emergency service; the targeted reduction in waiting times through the special delivery unit, SDU, led initiatives and money follows the patient funding, which many Deputies were asking about tonight; the consolidation of complex treatments in large hospitals to concentrate resources and skills to the benefit of patients; the strengthening of local systems to allow better access to day surgery, diagnostics and routine treatments in our patients' communities which will flow from the smaller hospital framework under development at the Government's request; the creation, as seen in Cork, of specialist elective facilities so the delivery of this treatment is not disrupted by the inevitable priority of emergency cases; and, above all, the provision of fair and equal access where our citizens need it through the creation of a system of universal health insurance.

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