Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish Deputy Simon Harris the very best in his new role as Minister for Health. I ask him to take charge of all aspects of health to ensure that there is accountability in our health service. I think back over the years and my time as a member of Kerry County Council and it seems to me that former Ministers for Health were not really accountable for health at all. They threw it back to the HSE. In reply to any question asked in the Dáil, a Minister would say he or she would refer it to the HSE. If one was at the HSE forum in the County Hall in Cork and asked the HSE to account for something, it would refer it back to the Department. The buck needs to stop with somebody. I ask the new Minister, who is a fit young man himself, to take charge of the Department of Health to ensure that the service is properly run and overseen.

Are there too many officials in the HSE rather than front-line staff? Front-line staff in the hospitals in Kerry, including nurses and those on the floor especially at night, are, and have been, under tremendous pressure. There are clearly not enough nurses. At University Hospital Kerry in Tralee and at Killarney Community Hospital, staff are visibly under pressure every day of the week. If a nurse goes off sick on a ward, which happens, the rest of the staff are under severe pressure for the duration of the shift. We need more nurses and that must be addressed. There is a problem with recruiting GPs in rural areas. I highlight Rathmore in Kerry where it is a real issue now. Graduating GPs are not inclined to stay in our country. They cost a great deal to educate but in one year - 2014 - 89 of the 91 who graduated left the country. Something has to be done to rectify that and, as such, I call on the Minister to ensure it is.

Every morning an account is given on radio in Kerry of the number of patients on trolleys. It happens all over the country. Why is that so? Why can we not sort it out? In Kerry, it appears the reason is that so many of our wards are closed. At University Hospital Kerry, two or three wards were closed completely four or five years ago because they could not be staffed. Staffing is the issue. The new community hospital in Kenmare is only half open as is Dingle Community Hospital. The grounds for the hospital in Dingle were given over by the landowner for free to build a community hospital for the people of the area and yet a lot of its accommodation is being used as office space for the HSE. I deplore that because it is not why the hospital was built.

Turning to mental health, a new unit has been built at Deer Lodge on St. Margaret's Road in Killarney. It has been completely finished for almost 12 months but there are no staff available for it. Sadly, close to my home in Kerry, four people have committed suicide. I am not saying the opening of this unit would have prevented that but the unit has been built for a purpose and is not serving one as long as it remains unopened. I ask the new Minister to address that issue immediately because the unit in Killarney is needed by all of the people in Kerry.

We had what we were told was a reconfiguration of the ambulance service two or three years ago. "Reconfiguration" is a terrible word because I take it to mean a reduction in service rather than a reconfiguration of the service. In Kerry, and I suppose it is the case nationally, the rule is that an emergency hospital ambulance cannot take a patient to a district hospital. We had a case on the Muckross Road in Killarney where a patient could not be taken by the emergency ambulance to the district hospital in Killarney. The man took his last drive in the world in the back of a builder's van when the doctor involved secured a wheelchair to put him into it. We are supposed to have intermediate care vehicles to take care of that situation but in the south, sadly, there are no staff to operate them. I ask that the issue be addressed. There is no point having vehicles if there is no one to drive them.

What is happening with home help is a serious issue for me. Home help is vital to keep elderly and disabled people in their homes for the last years of their lives but it has been seriously cut. A great many people are in contact with my office each day to ask about hours or to say that the hours that they already had have been cut. In one case, an elderly woman of 88 years of age was getting five half hours over five mornings but that has been cut to two half hours. The woman was born in 1928 and has given her life to the country.

After spending her life rearing her family and doing her best for everyone she met, this is how she is being treated. Her home help has been cut from five half hours - a half hour each morning - to two half hours. A blind man in another part of the constituency has had his home help removed at the weekends. On Saturdays and Sundays, he gets up and tries to put on his clothes but because he cannot see, they are upside-down and inside-out. He burns himself with water whenever he tries to make himself a cup of tea. He lives alone and his neighbours are worried about him.

It is not fair, as people do not get better at weekends or on bank holidays. It is sad to think that on Christmas Day, St. Stephen's Day and new year's day, when all of the world is operating under the guise of peace and good, or on any other bank holiday, there is no home help for some people. This matter must be addressed. Surely doing so would be cheaper and easier than putting people into nursing homes. Some of them die after a few weeks of being in a nursing home. If they could be helped to stay in their own homes, it would mean so much to many and save the country a great deal of money.

Kerry has a separate issue and is under more pressure. People are as entitled to live in Kerry as in any other county. A few weeks ago, we had the case of a patient whose address was given as Ballydesmond, Mallow, County Cork. While that is her correct address, she is actually on the Kerry side. If she was on the Mallow side, she would get 20 hours of home help per week but because she is on the Kerry side, she only gets ten hours per week. We are in the same country, so everyone should be treated the same. All of the children of the country should be cherished equally. This matter must be addressed. There are no ifs or buts about it and I will not settle for anything less. People who need home help should get as much of it as possible and it should be distributed equally to everyone.

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