Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

Quality and safe care must be at the heart of service provision. The manner in which very many of the families discovered the news that beds were being lost and a second ward was to be closed was much less than satisfactory. It began as a sort of whisper and rumour and I should reiterate the level of anxiety that this caused. I appreciate entirely that budgetary considerations are real and the moratorium and other strands of Government policy are causing significant difficulties in the health service. In the case of care for older people, other factors must also be calculated, including the attachment of the person in question to their place of residence, the concerns and anxieties of the families and the adverse consequences of moving an older, weaker and perhaps vulnerable individual. It is all very well to say that people have been moved to other appropriate facilities but one must also calculate the ability of families to access those facilities, and in this case those matters have not been properly calculated.

I asked the Minister of State during the course of my remarks about the HSE service plans, which were mentioned in the response. The HSE indicated that closure of some beds would be unavoidable and it did not expect that in the case of the north-east Dublin region the closures would exceed 105 beds. Nevertheless we are 41 beds down in March. Does the Government stand by the 105-bed figure and is it the case that those 41 beds will be replaced elsewhere? Have they been counted out? Does the Minister of State share my view that in dealing with these particular circumstances for older people the HSE, specifically, must be mindful of the age of the people concerned and the sensitivities of the families, which was not the case this time?

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