Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. When I was doing my research I discovered there has been a Private Members' business motion on this issue every year since 2004. We know who was in charge in 2004. It is a damning indictment of many different people and bodies that we are still in this situation today and that we continue to have a discussion on the matter in October, November or January of any given year.

We can consider this in three different ways. First, why are people ending up in accident and emergency units? Second, why are they staying there for so long? Third, why are people not leaving accident and emergency departments more quickly? We need to take practical steps.

The Minister of State and the Department will be well aware of the question of primary care centres and getting more people treated in them before they get to accident and emergency departments. There is major concern, particularly among rural general practitioners at the moment. I offer one example from Galway. A GP there contacted me and said he had treated a young man who required seven sutures in his leg. This took 12 minutes in the doctor's surgery. It was a bad laceration. The patient also required an anti-tetanus injection. For this, the doctor received €28 from the Government. The materials in this case cost €19, giving the doctor an after-tax income for this work of €3.90. I also understand from many GPs operating in rural areas that making house calls to elderly patients is no longer an option because of the time such calls take and the remuneration involved. Instead, those patients are being referred to accident and emergency departments. This involves ambulance calls, trips across the country and long waits on trolleys in overcrowded accident and emergency units.

We need to consider the type of patients who are coming into our accident and emergency departments. A particular point has come to my attention. I have been contacted by a number of people on the matter. This relates to cancer sufferers. We know these people are going through a serious time in their lives. They go to accident and emergency departments for routine treatment. The doctors know what they need to do to help to make these patients better, yet they are still waiting in the same queue as other people in accident and emergency departments, thus taking up time available to doctors. Let us consider the case of University Hospital Galway, for example. The doctors there know why those patients are there. Those who present could be put into another area where they could get the treatment they need. In that way they would not take up places in accident and emergency departments. Cancer sufferers should not be in accident and emergency departments during the course of their medication given the nature of their immune systems. Moreover, there is no point in their taking up space in this way.

I was contacted by a nursing home today. The person concerned said that in recent weeks he has contacted a number of hospitals to say the nursing home has between ten and 14 beds available all the time and that he would help in any way possible. I am not suggesting for a moment that everyone who is in a hospital could go to a nursing home, but I have no doubt some could. The person did not even get a call-back. Between ten and 14 beds were free in the system. The person from the nursing home wondered what needs to happen for hospitals to be able to move patients to nursing homes that can supply the beds for them. If there was more co-operation between the relevant hospitals, particularly those suffering from overcrowded accident and emergency departments, and those who have beds in the community, we could make progress. In that way, patients could be moved out of our hospitals much sooner than is the case at present.

I welcome what has happened regarding the fair deal scheme. There are many people willing to provide help, particularly those in the nursing home sector, and they need a lot more co-operation than they are currently getting.

See this speech in context