Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the motion but I, too, took a double take when I saw who was proposing it, given it was Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats which were first to take a very sharp scalpel to the health services. I have notes for my contribution but I will ignore them. I will start instead with some good news. The endoscopy unit at Sligo Regional Hospital has achieved level one accreditation from the Royal College of Physicians in London. This is an excellent achievement and I commend the staff and everyone involved with that achievement. It shows what can be done if a staff and a good hospital are given half a chance. Sligo Regional Hospital is only the second hospital in the country to receive this level of achievement. It demonstrates the standard of excellence for patients in the endoscopy department of the hospital.

I wish to contrast this achievement and the pride of the staff in that achievement with the situation of breast cancer services. Before the election, this Government promised the breast cancer services would be restored to Sligo. The service was taken away by the Fianna Fáil-PD Government and it has not been restored. Promises have not been kept. A bus to Galway was provided in place of the restoration of breast cancer services.

A specialist stroke unit is badly needed in Sligo Regional Hospital, including a catheterisation laboratory but there has been nothing yet. A previous speaker from this side of the House said there was no suggestion made as to how matters could be improved within the current straitened economic situation. The Government needs to look at how much potential productive time, particularly of surgeons who are well-paid consultants, is not being used in theatre because there are not sufficient theatre staff. Lists are growing longer and well-paid consultants are not working, I would argue, to anything near their full productive potential. This situation needs to be examined urgently.

It seems to me that in this House we are engaged in an unspoken process of slimming down health services to make them a more attractive proposition for some form of privatisation. I do not know what that form is but I am very suspicious of it.

A man came to me yesterday. He said he had an appointment in St. Vincent's hospital in Dublin for a post-operative check-up. He had previously travelled on a HSE bus from Sligo to the clinic in Dublin and back again to Sligo. He was told on Friday when he rang to inquire about the bus time that the bus had been withdrawn. He had no knowledge of the withdrawal prior to his call. He would have to make his own way to Dublin but this was a man who had never set foot in Dublin apart from walking from the minibus to the hospital for his surgery. I rang St. Vincent's hospital and they were excellent. They arranged a later appointment for him. I took him to Dublin and brought him to St. Vincent's where he was treated in the outpatients' department. I took him to the station and ensured he got on the train for Sligo. This was his first time on a train. It is disgraceful that this man did not know until he made an inquiry last Friday that his mode of transport had been withdrawn.

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