David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The response of the Minister of State is extraordinary. I know it is coming from the Minister for Health himself. The response says that Dr. Herity rightly points out that it would be a mistake to assume that the catchment area of UHW is represented by every resident in Waterford and its surrounding counties and goes on to say that he therefore determined the effective catchment population by looking at regional patient flow data. How does that sit with official HSE and Department policy that UHW is the regional hospital for the south east? Has policy changed? Is the Minister for Health now saying that UHW is no longer a regional hospital and is some sort of glorified general hospital? If one logs on to the HSE website or Googles UHW one will find that UHW is a regional hospital providing regional services, including cardiology. Was Dr. Higgins lied to when a commitment was given that the Government would continue to provide invasive cardiology services to the people of the south east? Were the people of the south east lied to? Were hospital consultants lied to? That is how it seems to me when I read this response that says he was right to "assume". Why should he assume? It is either policy or it is not. He has no right to assume. Nobody has a right to assume. It should have been based on medical, clinical need and existing policy. In my view, the existing policy is that UHW is a regional hospital. The Minister needs to explain to the people of the south east whether that policy has changed.

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