Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. My question concerns a number of examples of which I am aware, whereby someone was given an appointment for six weeks' time and then the appointment was cancelled the following week. This is not an emergency process. It is not about capacity or urgent demand in a hospital in a particular week. It is scheduled postponement which I see as taking place on a systemic basis. As we enter the winter period, my fear is that the HSE is trying to scale down its operations in our tertiary hospitals to the detriment of people who are trying to get treatment for which they have been waiting many months and, often, many years. As the Minister and the Taoiseach have repeated this week, we have the biggest budget for health care ever in the history of the State. If appointments are being postponed a week after they have been scheduled, it shows complete management dysfunction and a total disintegration of our hospital system. I fear the winter ahead because we are going to see massive systemic cancellations across our hospital system to the detriment of many patients who had hoped to have treatment.

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