Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Technical Group for allowing me time to speak on this important Bill. I welcome that the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, is in the Chamber for this debate. Given that she is a very practical person, I am sure she wants to hear about practical things that are happening on the ground with regard to our health service. St. Columbanus Community Hospital in Killarney is an excellent facility with which the Minister of State is familiar and which is run by an excellent management team and by nurses and staff who are stretched to the limit. Yesterday evening, I received a message from the hospital that a resident, who was not very elderly, wanted to see me. When I visited the ward on which he was staying, he was not expecting me because he did not have a mobile telephone through which I could contact him to make an appointment. He was sitting on a chair beside his bed with a towel covering his face. When I said "hello" to him he perked up and pulled the towel off his head. He explained that he had covered his head with the towel because he has cataracts and has been waiting two years to have them removed. The Minister of State will be aware this is usually a successful operation and that the distorted vision caused by cataracts can be very upsetting. This man is only in his early 60s but he is condemned to sit on that chair with a towel over his head because the only way he can get comfort is by seeing blackness in front of his eyes. If he removes the towel he is upset by the lights and strobes he sees because of the cataracts.

These operations have been moved to the South Infirmary in Cork, which is inundated to the point where it cannot manage. Earlier today I listened to the Minister for Finance as he clapped the Government on the back. I know the Minister of State would not act likewise because she is aware of the issues arising in her Department. She knows too many stories like that of the nice man I met yesterday to clap herself on the back. When these issues are addressed, I will be the first person to clap her on the back but I will not do so while we cannot look after people in that position or we condemn those who worked hard and paid their taxes to that type of existence. I cannot get the experience out of my head because it was an upsetting encounter.

As a constituency Deputy, I am sure the Minister of State is dealing with similar issues on a daily basis. We need an honest and open debate about the stress and pressure facing front-line nurses and staff in our community and general hospitals, whether in accident and emergency departments or on the wards, because nurses are at breaking point. That is not an exaggeration. Over the summer I had reason to visit Kerry General Hospital and Killarney Community Hospital, as well as other community hospitals, on a daily basis. I have also been down to Cahirciveen. Everywhere I go, nurses and other staff tell me they are breaking point. They are working harder than they ever worked before because they are not given adequate resources to deal with the workload. It is a dangerous situation saved only by their resilience and the fact they go beyond the call of duty every day. People who knew I was visiting the aforementioned individual in St. Columbanus home told me that what was happening was a disgrace. Something has to be done. I know the Government has to be prudent with money and budgets but there is a difference between being prudent and not providing a service. When it comes to simple matters, such as waiting lists for cataract or hip operations, it is disgraceful that people continue to suffer. They do not have sufficient resources by themselves and rely on the health service to ensure they do not have to wait in discomfort, misery or agony. That is unfortunately the situation.

The management of our community and general hospitals are excellent. They provide an excellent service with what they have but they do not have enough. Kerry General Hospital has not received any structural investment other than the additional work done on the accident and emergency department, which was welcome. The wards of those hospitals need a huge investment to upgrade them. I ask the Minister to fight for the necessary resources. There is Cabinet responsibility for providing proper health care to people who desperately need our help.

Tomorrow the general practitioners of Ireland will take an unusual action by protesting outside the Dáil. They do not want to be here because they would prefer to do their work as general practitioners who provide an excellent service. Unfortunately, when young doctors entering the workforce see the contracts and obstacles this Government is putting in their way, they are bailing out and leaving the country. Doctors who are growing elderly are saying to themselves they have had enough and are retiring rather than signing up to what is put before them. We will lose a wealth of experience and will be left with another crisis in terms of a scarcity of good general practitioners willing to work in communities the length and breadth of the country. It is unprecedented that the doctors are coming here tomorrow.

See this speech in context