Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this very important issue. Throughout the whole process of the development of this report, Sinn Féin has fought for an adequately resourced public health system that treats people on the basis of health need and not on their ability to pay. We fought to ensure that the future of the health care will be universal health care. I commend the hard work of my colleagues, Deputies Louise O'Reilly and Pat Buckley, who worked very hard on the committee to ensure that a number of progressive solutions were put forward in this report.

In particular, I welcome the fact that this report recognises the need to establish a universal single tier health service with treatment based on health need and not on ability to pay. I welcome the fact that it has been recognised that additional resources are required in order to reduce the waiting times and enhance community health facilities. I also welcome the fact that there is agreement to phase out private health care in public hospitals and introduce a carta sláinte, which would ensure access to all publicly funded health and social care services. These are just a few successes of this report. As my colleague said, Sinn Féin would like it to go much further.

Our policy proposals outlined in our plan for universal health care include the recruitment of an additional 6,600 front-line staff, the roll-out of free prescriptions and investment in our ambulance service. We would support older people through increases in home help hours, respite and providing additional nursing home beds. We would implement universal health care and deal with the trolley crisis. I am convinced that a Sinn Féin-led Government is the only one that will truly deliver the type of a health system that the citizens of this State so badly need, want and deserve.

However, we recognise that this report provides a good starting point in addressing the crisis in our health service. It is a crisis that the people of my constituency know only too well. The latest figures show that the outpatient waiting list in Tullamore hospital stands at 13,000 with over 2,500 people waiting more than 15 months for treatment. The full capacity protocol and emergency measure was activated in the hospital last year 230 times, and that was the third highest in the State. Meanwhile key posts remain vacant and front-line staff struggle to cope with the sheer scale of the crisis with which they are faced I take this opportunity to commend those front-line staff. It is unfair that they are being put in the position of having to deal with the crisis in which we have been landed. Only 57% of children and adult community mental health services recommended for the region under A Vision for Change have been put in place. The health service in Offaly just like the rest of this State is in an absolute shambles.

This report is only worthwhile and only worth the paper it is written on if it is implemented. It simply cannot be allowed to sit on a shelf and gather dust. I hope, rather than believe, that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are serious about implementing the necessary recommendations of this report.

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