Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute. This important Bill seeks to abolish the board structure of the HSE and provide for a directorate to be the new governing body of the HSE in place of the board, headed by a director general; it provides for further accountability arrangements for the HSE; and it provides for related matters, including a number of technical amendments to take account of the replacement of the board structure by the directorate structure. I welcome the Minister to the House. After 14 years of seeing money thrown at a problem without addressing it, the Minister, Deputy Reilly, has taken the bull by the horns and is effecting change, with a much lower budget, in the way we deliver health services in this country.

I come from County Roscommon. I have had to deal with the ups and downs of innuendo, of lies and of people coming out with completely mad suggestions. I will say this: shame on RTE, shame on TV3, shame on most of the radio stations and shame on the people who constantly carry on with lies in regard to what is happening in Roscommon Hospital. I want to put on the record that Roscommon town has a population of 5,000 people and County Roscommon has a population of 50,000. Where I live, in Boyle, and throughout north Roscommon, the people have always gone to the accident and emergency department in Sligo. In south Roscommon, the people have always gone to the accident and emergency department in Ballinasloe. Roscommon town has 5,000 people and a consultant at the hospital wrote to state that it could not oversee a safe accident and emergency department because the throughput was not available. We were told 14 days before a vote here a year and a half ago, by none other than Dr. Tracey Cooper of HIQA, that she could not allow an accident and emergency department in Roscommon Hospital because there was not sufficient throughput. Fewer than 30 people a day used it. They called it an accident and emergency department but it had no cardiac surgeon, nobody to incubate, no paediatric surgeon and no anaesthetic cover overnight. It is not the accident and emergency department I would expect if I were in difficulty. If a person has a serious heart attack or is in a car accident, that person will be brought to an accident and emergency department. We have now put in place an air ambulance service, based in Athlone, which is saving people's lives and which has carried out over 120 missions since it was put in place as a pilot scheme. I hope that service will be continued because it is saving lives. We also have paramedics driving about. Whereas at one time, following an accident, patients were brought to an accident and emergency department such as that at Roscommon to be stabilised and then brought somewhere else, now they are stabilised at home or at the side of the road following an accident, and are then brought to a real accident and emergency department. Lives have been saved and I want to put on record that no lives have been lost despite the innuendo and the untruths that have gone out.

What really gets me is that on Tuesday night I saw a constituency colleague of mine on "The Vincent Browne Show" on TV3. Seven times he mentioned my name and said I did not do anything. I tell him to get down off his high horse. He should go in and see what is happening in Roscommon County Hospital and what is happening under the Minister, Deputy James Reilly. What is happening is that we are allocating resources and ensuring people's lives are saved. It is happening on the ground. Even if the newspapers and media outlets do not want to know, it behoves them to call in and see what is happening.

Outpatient attendances for Roscommon County Hospital in 2012 were 14,855, some 2,000 more than in 2011. The number of day cases was 5,127, which was 1,400 more than in 2011. The number of inpatient discharges was 1,889, whereas the target for 2012 was 1,620. The number of urgent care centre attendances, including the minor injury care unit, was 5,940. Roscommon hospital is leading the way as an example of the role a small hospital will play. The smaller hospitals framework will set out the range of services that can be performed in smaller hospitals. If I might tell my colleague what has happened in this regard, examples of service development in the hospital this year include plastic and reconstructive surgery, led by Dr. Deirdre Jones, which commenced at the end of 2011 and is now extended to two days a week. This service is growing, with 50 patients booked for each day of the clinic - 100 patients per week - and access is significantly improving, with decreasing waiting times. Sleep studies, led by Dr. Imran Saleem, commenced in Roscommon hospital in March last year and 132 patients have already been assessed. Urology services commenced at the hospital in May. The radiology project, upgrading the X-ray system to allow doctors to view electronically and share X-rays quickly and easily, went live in August.

This means that Roscommon Hospital can offer increased diagnostic services to patients from Roscommon who attend consultants based in Galway. In addition it means that Roscommon now provides CT scans for suitable patients on the waiting list for scans at Galway University Hospital. It is another example of how all the resources of the group are used to facilitate best patient care. An application has been made for planning permission for the endoscopy suite. This will be a €3 million development construction of which will commence in the last quarter of 2013. The unit will have JAG accreditation. Roscommon Hospital will become a centre for colorectal screening under the governance of the National Cancer Screening Service in mid-2013. It will provide a new dental service for patients with special needs while under general anaesthetic commencing in September. The nursing initiatives include nurses prescribing, x-ray prescribing, nurse-led clinics, colorectal clinical nurse specialists, Bord Altranais assessment and productive ward initiatives. The group inpatient list target has been exceeded in Roscommon Hospital.

A few nights ago someone on "Tonight with Vincent Browne" asked "who is Frank Feighan?". Frank Feighan attends a meeting in Roscommon Hospital and in the Department of Health every week to ensure that I deliver for the people of County Roscommon but most important, to ensure that the people of Roscommon are safe. We do not have innuendo. The consultants in Roscommon Hospital wrote a letter before that famous decision to say that they could not stand over a safe service. The consultant in the hospital stated to me that the accident and emergency department was safe only if an accident occurred within a mile and a half of the hospital. In that case lives may be saved. Otherwise it was unsafe. Virtually all the doctors in Roscommon and other places sent their patients to Sligo, Galway, Dublin or Athlone. Only 9% of the people who went to hospital from Roscommon, which has a population of fewer than 50,000, went to Roscommon Hospital.

The people and the doctors of the county drove at speed to get away from the accident and emergency department in Roscommon. Now they are shedding crocodile tears, coming out with lies and innuendo stating that it is safe and they want it. They will have a hospital of which they can be proud. It will be five times busier and twice as big but there will be no accident and emergency department because it is unsafe, not through lack of money or political will but because it cannot comply with the HIQA standard. The Opposition have talked about the money that went to hospitals in Kilkenny and Wexford. The same amount of money effectively went to Roscommon in 2004. Fianna Fáil spent €7 million on building an accident and emergency department, then set up HIQA with terms of reference that closed it down.

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