David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure officials in the Department wrote the Minister's script. His response worries me because he is saying that highly specialised services such as primary percutaneous coronary intervention, PCI, need to be carried out in a small number of hospitals. He said that low-volume services do not facilitate the ongoing and sustainable achievement of the patient outcomes required and that based upon this country's population, we can only operate a limited number of primary PCI centres. We are being teed up again for a report that will again tell us the same thing. That is what I am reading from this because I have seen the documentation. I received it under a freedom of information request. The HSE, the Department, the acute coronary syndrome programme and the South-South West hospital group were all saying the same thing, which is that the population of Waterford and its environs does not justify emergency PCI. Unless the Minister accepts that this is regional and unless the terms of reference are very clear that this is about the south east and the population of the south east, which is what was in the Higgins report where a clear commitment was given that enhanced cardiology services and interventional cardiology for all 500,000 patients in the south east would be provided at University Hospital Waterford, it will be a tee up by officials in the Department and the HSE. We have been sold pup after pup on this issue and enough is enough. While the Minister says he will consult, unless he agrees today on the regional nature of this issue, it will go nowhere and we will continue to be sold down the river time and again.

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