Dáil debates

Wednesday, 22 November 2017

12:30 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Following the "RTÉ Investigates" programme last night, it is clear to me and everyone else that the HSE is dysfunctional. Is the Taoiseach, a former Minister for Health and a doctor, not mortified and embarrassed that on the show last night, Mr. Stephen Cussen from Limerick stated, "I pray every night that God will take me"? He says this because he is in so much pain. He has been waiting for three years for an outpatient appointment for a knee replacement and he is in severe pain. Stephen is waiting for a public appointment in Croom Hospital, which has a three-year waiting list. If a person pays for private treatment, he or she would be seen in six months.

There are 2,700 consultants working in 47 acute hospitals across the country. A vast amount of doctors do great work, as the Taoiseach knows, and they would do more if the facilities were there to allow them do so. In 2008, a new consultant contract was introduced so anyone who signed up to this was limited in the amount of private work they could do. They were offered enhanced salaries to accept that contract. The aim of this contract was to control private practice in public hospitals and stop doctors going off-site to private hospitals. In this contract, a consultant was to do 80% public work and 20% private work in a public hospital to ensure private work was limited. The opposite seems to be happening in some cases and the public waiting lists are only getting longer.

Mary, who is 75 years old, was on the programme last night and she had to sell her jewellery in order to have a cataract removed because she was blind in one eye and had ailing sight in the other. If she did not sell her jewellery she would have been on a two-year waiting list to have the cataract removed. Once she had the money to go for private treatment, she was seen within two months and paid €1,800 to be seen in the same hospital where she would have had to wait for two years. In the Limerick hospital where Mary was waiting, there are 1,272 people waiting for a cataract operation, with 407 people waiting more than 12 months. It was revealed last night that consultants in Limerick had a 30% private case load, which is way over the 20% level allowed in the contracts.

In 2016, almost 24,000 private patients were seen in public hospitals in Ireland. That means in the past two years, almost 48,000 public patients have lost out to private patients in a public hospital system. There is something wrong with our health system if we are encouraging people to travel north to Belfast to have procedures carried out privately. Once they come home after the treatment with a receipt in their hands, the HSE will refund them the money. I have numerous constituents awaiting procedures, including knee, hip and cataract operations. One constituent is going blind waiting to be seen but the HSE has only said that the patient should travel to Belfast and the money will be refunded afterwards. Would any member of the Cabinet be happy for someone close to them having to sell their possessions in order to have a simple procedure like a cataract operation carried out?

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.