Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This issue is something that is very close to my heart, but more importantly, to the people of Galway, the country and the patients who are on waiting lists, trolleys and who have not got a health service. I know Deputies have complimented the Minister for Health and I really would like to be positive, but I despair of such statements as "Universal health care is not just something to implement but is a direction and a journey". It is not a journey or a direction. It is a basic human right to have public health. It is a basic human right to walk into a hospital and be treated with dignity and respect and not be sitting on a trolley for three or four days. Even on an economic basis, it is nonsense to make elderly people sit on trolleys. The research clearly points out that somebody over the age of 70 who is on a trolley for two days will inevitably spend a longer period of time in hospital and will therefore cost more. Even on an economic level, we have no choice but to do something about our creaking health system.

I have had the privilege in a long career in local politics of sitting on the regional health forum along with 39 other dedicated councillors from Donegal down to Tipperary. I am more than familiar with the health service and its inadequacies. Deputies could come in here in every debate and point out the long waiting lists. I can tell the House that they are extraordinarily long in Galway. At any given time, we have up to 30,000 patients on an outpatient waiting list waiting for basic health services. On inpatient lists, the figure varies from 5,000 to 9,000. One has to ask why our health service is creaking at the seams. Why are we in the position of establishing a committee consequent on many reports up to now, yet we are still in trouble with our health system?

I wish to pay tribute to Deputy Shortall for her initiative. I have no difficulty in supporting the initiative with regard to the committee. However, I have some concerns with the direction that the committee might take in spending time looking at models of funding for a health service rather than making the health service accountable and available to all our people. In contrast to the Minister, I do not think funding is difficult at all. Funding for our health service comes from our taxes. When I knocked on doors, I did not meet a single person who wanted their taxes reduced. They wanted a health service. I do not know why we need to go down the route of looking at funding. I hope that the committee will look at how to make the health service available as quickly as possible. I hope it will listen to the people on the frontline, the nurses who have never been listened to, the cleaners, the porters and then the consultants on how to improve our health service.

If I analyse what has happened in my time as a councillor on the regional health forum, there were cutbacks in 2006 during the height of the Celtic tiger. Only the language was different. The Government of 2006 talked about bed refurbishment measures to justify bed and ward closures in Merlin Park University Hospital and the regional hospital. It talked about cost containment measures.

We had many failed initiatives. I despair when Fianna Fáil champions the National Treatment Purchase Fund. In my time, we have had at least four failed initiatives without any analysis of the fundamental problems. We had the co-location of private hospitals on public lands led by the former Minister for Health, Mary Harney. It took all of our effort in Galway to fight that appalling initiative to co-locate a private hospital on public lands. We then had the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which in effect channelled public money into private hospitals to keep the private for-profit hospitals making a profit while, at the same time, depleting our public health system. On top of that, we had a special man in Galway for three years on a special salary to deliver the special delivery unit. Again, that channelled public money into private hospitals, allowing waiting lists to build up and then paying public money to treat public patients in a private for-profit hospital.

I apologise if I am parochial in speaking about Galway, but it is the microcosm of what is happening in the country. Only last Friday, there was an announcement that two DEXA scanners were closed. These are vital pieces of diagnostic equipment in the diagnosis of osteoporosis. They were closed because there was no staff. We had professors speaking out against it and we had the embarrassment of hosting a conference in Galway on that very topic when we could not use the DEXA scanners.

I have heard indirectly that some effort was made and that one of the scanners has opened again. However, the fundamental problem in regard to lack of staff has gone unanswered. While the Minister tells us there is no embargo, and in any speech he appeals to the HSE to employ further staff, we have the HSE making a statement that it cannot employ any staff until three leave, when one can come in.

We go from crisis to crisis. Again last week I put down a question in regard to a new public hospital in Galway. I did not do this off my own bat but because the clinical director of the hospital in Galway, which serves the region, has said a new hospital is absolutely necessary and that we must begin planning for it. Under the new politics and in the new atmosphere prevailing in the Dáil, I tabled a question asking, in view of the clinical director's statement, what steps the Minister intended to take. What I got back was Civil Service-speak, although, again, I place no blame on the civil servants. The Minister is paid a very good salary to deal with the questions put. He neatly sidestepped that question and continued on with the old politics in the guise of the new politics. I find that unacceptable. I am sorry he is not present in the House. I thought he would have addressed the serious issue of the lack of capacity in Galway, which is the top risk factor. It was a very serious statement in that the clinical director said the congested site in Galway is simply fire-fighting with each additional building. I listed the buildings involved and he acknowledged the hospital is simply fire-fighting. It is past time to plan for a hospital at Merlin Park, where there is 150 acres of land.

There are very good consultants in the health service. As he did not ask for his name to remain confidential, I am going to quote one of them, Dr. Peter O'Rourke from Donegal. He took the trouble of writing a two-page letter to all Deputies and he then gave us a document highlighting how practical solutions can be used pending the decision of the committee. That has not been mentioned by the Minister, who received a copy of the letter, as did all Fine Gael Deputies. Dr. O'Rourke makes very practical suggestions in regard to medical day units, five-day wards, diagnostic services and access to simple X-rays. If these measures were implemented, it would reduce the situation pertaining in Galway and in every other hospital throughout the country.

I will speak later on the issue of mental health. In Galway, every month 300 patients, including patients suffering from mental health problems, simply leave accident and emergency because they will not be seen. They walk out, lacking the patience to wait. Nobody could have the patience to wait the length of time they have to wait in Galway, notwithstanding the best efforts of the staff. On a monthly basis, 300 people walk out of accident and emergency because no service is available.

On top of that, people with mental health problems are trying to access a congested site and an overworked department of psychiatry by going through accident and emergency. We need to ask ourselves a question. Which of us would like to do that? It is okay to make fine speeches in the Dáil but which Deputy would like it if they, or their wives or children, were suffering mental health problems and had to go through a packed accident and emergency department? Which Deputy here today has spent time on a trolley? I have not. That would guide the direction of the conversation and the urgency of recognising that universal health care is a right - not a journey, not a decision, but a right. I will happily work with the committee if it is considering implementing that right as a matter of urgency, dealing in a practical way with the problems and listening to the people who know best.

See this speech in context