Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On 31 October 2010 some 10,000 people took to the streets of Navan in support of Our Lady's Hospital, Navan. It was probably the largest such rally in living memory in County Meath. The now Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, was invited to speak on the day. Rightly, he decried Fianna Fáil for cutting surgery services from the hospital. He promised that they would be returned under a Fine Gael Government. Some months later in 2011 Fine Gael issued a newsletter to every home in the county stating that under Fine Gael services would not be cut in the hospital until the new regional hospital was built. Some of the Fine Gael candidates promised that in the lifetime of the current Government a new regional hospital would be built in Navan, County Meath.

We are approaching the halfway point of the current Administration. The cynicism of that pre-election promise has been laid bare because nowhere to be seen are there even plans for a new regional hospital in Navan at the moment. Following the election, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, distanced himself as much as he could from the Fine Gael promise made by several candidates who later became Members and who serve along with the Minister in government. We have also discovered that despite these promises the trajectory of Fine Gael and the Labour Party in government would be exactly the same as the trajectory of the Fianna Fáil Government.

In August last year it was announced that manpower supplied by agency staff for various duties, including overtime, to the equivalent of 200 staff members would be cancelled and not replaced in the Louth Meath area. These cuts have affected such places as Navan more than elsewhere. Over the years, because of the HSE desire for reductions at Navan, it has encouraged the relocation of staff from there to Drogheda. The posts in question have been backfilled by agency staff. Therefore, when agency staff are cut, it radically affects hospitals such as Navan a great deal more than elsewhere. We have seen cardiac technicians who provide front-line services being let go from Navan and not replaced.

The Minister present, Deputy Bruton, has some of his roots in County Meath. Does he not believe that a heart attack in County Meath deserves the same level of medical response as a heart attack anywhere else in the country? Typically, individuals who have had strokes in County Meath receive health care services from speech therapists, especially in an emergency situation where they are choking. However, speech therapists have been let go and not replaced in Meath.

The Minister should listen to the comments of a senior consultant on the effects of cuts to services in the Louth Meath region. He said they would lead to delayed admissions to intensive care units. He said they would lead to delayed emergency and cancer surgery, delayed cancellation of elective adult and paediatric surgery and cancellation of procedures for management of acute and chronic pain. Incredibly, a senior consultant stated in a letter to the HSE on the back of the cuts initiated by the Government that any cuts in the region would increase sickness and mortality rates for patients requiring surgery. Recently, I spoke with a surgeon involved in cancer surgery. He informed me that over Christmas due to the level of accident and emergency overcrowding he was forced to put cancer surgery on hold. Beds which were to be used for the recuperation of cancer patients were instead used to take the flow from the accident and emergency department. These cancer surgery patients are in chronic pain and immediate need of surgery. All this is a result of the cuts that have taken place. So bad is the situation that the Irish Hospital Consultants Association stated that its members will no longer be liable for breaches of patient safety as a result of these cuts and that responsibility now rests with the HSE.

Surgery services of which the Minister, Deputy James Reilly, spoke during the 2010 rally in Navan have not been fully returned to the hospital in Navan. So disgusted are the people of Meath at the evaporation of Fine Gael's pre-election promises that some time ago on a cold November day a second march was held. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people attended that march, the second-largest march in Meath in living memory. The campaign was phenomenal. Some 40,000 leaflets were distributed door to door. Some 8,500 people participated through Facebook. A total of 5,000 new petitions were signed, bringing the number of petitions signed on behalf of the hospital to 20,000. Up to 1,000 businesses and shops throughout the county erected posters in their shop windows. A total of 130 community organisations from Meath GAA down mobilised their members to join the campaign.

Our Lady's Hospital, Navan is in a critical position. People wait on trolleys every night while empty wards remain closed beside them. Serious front-line emergency services are gone despite promises. No consultation has occurred with staff or elected representatives in the county on the impending small hospital report.

Hundreds of millions of euro have been taken from funding for the HSE in recent years and the trend continues this year. Orwellian promises such as "universal health care" translate to the reality whereby medical cards are taken off people on low income. There is a palpable fear that the retrenchment trajectory of the Government will continue under this Bill and translate into further erosion of critical health services in Meath.

My plea to the Government is to focus on how critical health services are in hospitals such as Navan and to ensure that access to health care, which should be a right on the basis of need alone, is not taken from individuals in such a radical way.

On a regular basis I meet elderly people, perhaps with progressive chronic bone disorders, who are on waiting lists to join waiting lists. It is incredible to see these individuals, many of whom have paid taxes all their lives and who have contributed to society in every way they could, left in a situation where they cannot leave their houses.

They hobble around their homes waiting to see a consultant who can put them on a waiting list. I ask the Minister to uphold the pre-election promise that no services will be cut from Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, while we wait for a new regional hospital to be built in the town.

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