Dáil debates

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Hospital Waiting Lists: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

 

6:35 pm

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Boyd Barrett, Pringle, Seamus Healy and Tom Fleming.

At this point in the lifetime of the Government there is no expectation that the health service will improve. It is one of the areas where people had an expectation of an improvement. There was a lot said before the election.

It is something of an indictment that it is like clockwork each year that we see the same problems occurring. One can predict the reasons for them. For example, the problem of the long backlog in the registration of nurses is one of administration. We have known for months there is a real backlog in registering nurses and midwives, and even last week we heard the same criticisms from some of those looking to be registered. What will happen is nurses who are working in the nursing homes will be hired by the hospitals and then there will be a difficulty in the nursing homes because they will not have sufficient numbers to operate properly, and it will have the knock-on effect of increasing pressure in acute hospitals and patients not being able to be released to step-down facilities because they will not be adequately covered for safety purposes in terms of the number of nurses. That was entirely possible to overcome. It is not only about funding. That administrative side is a failure that will cause a problem soon, and we are already starting to see it.

Essentially, the other aspects, of patients waiting longer for procedures and getting sicker with more extensive treatment required, do not make sense from the point of view of the patient who is queuing who requires the procedure or even from the point of view of economics. I support the motion.

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