Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and I thank the Opposition for tabling it. Health is possibly one of the most important matters we can discuss in the House. While we discuss many important things, as the saying goes, "Your health is your wealth". Providing adequate support and funding to those who deliver services within our health system is equally important.

I am not sure the Opposition, including Fianna Fáil, have much room to criticise when it comes to a debate on our accident and emergency departments or any aspect of health. Their track record speaks for itself. The Minister for Health will be in the Chamber later and I do not envy his position. Since coming into Government, the health system has been a very difficult issue to deal with. We were handed something of a poison chalice. I am not talking about those delivering the services, but we have had a dysfunctional system for some time. While we do not want to see a cut in funding, for years money was pumped into the HSE and yet I do not believe the service then was superior to what we have now. It is certainly not perfect but huge strides have been made and many decisions have been taken to try to tackle the problems we face.

I thank the Minister for Health for visiting Navan hospital recently and clarifying, yet again, that Navan accident and emergency department is not closing, despite what many scaremongers are saying. I thank the Minister and his predecessor, Deputy Reilly, for listening to my concerns and those of many of my colleagues as well as the various unions and organisations representing hospital staff, including nurses and doctors. The Minister has tried to implement what has been asked of him. He has tried to allocate more funding when and where it is needed.

Without a shadow of a doubt in many areas we are starting to see where this is working. We are starting to see definite improvements with €117 million in additional funding being allocated to reduce overcrowding. As a result, we are seeing a reduction in delayed discharges while the fair deal waiting time has also been reduced. More than 220 beds are freed up every day and we can see additional improvements in areas that I could list.

The Minister said there are still too many people waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments. One of the biggest challenges we face is at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, which is not in my constituency but serves many people in my area. One of the biggest problems there is staff recruitment. On my local radio station I regularly discuss the health system, including accident and emergency departments. Every time I go on air I am asked what the Minister has done to try to address the problem since I was last interviewed on the station. In fairness, every time I have been on the radio I have been able to list a number of things and I have noticed the uptake in staff. Specifically for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, the INMO, the Department and the Minister agreed a series of provisions whereby additional beds were to be opened up, staff were to receive full pay and additional staff were to be taken on. After a number of months, a small fraction of that staff had been taken on.

Unfortunately, however, we have a double-edged sword here. We are constantly listening to reports about the desperate conditions hospitals are in, the overcrowding, unhappy staff and trolley lists. It is endless. If I were a young graduate leaving college, I would not want to work in that situation. The Minister, the media and everybody else needs to be more positive and needs to encourage people to come into our health system. If so, it would go a long way.

See this speech in context