Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for receiving a very important deputation this morning on mental health services in Clonmel. I know it is not relevant but I want to take the opportunity to thank the Minister of State for the way he received the deputation and the interest and compassion he showed. I welcome his commitment to come and visit to see if we can rectify the situation and address the lack of mental health services in Tipperary.

I asked this question the last time we debated the Bill and the amendments to it. I asked about the situation when a person is brought into hospital after an accident or when a person has developed pneumonia. In such a situation, people, especially older people, are very vulnerable and can be on trolleys. I jumped out of my seat the last time to demonstrate patients on trolleys with nurse managers shoving a form under them. I will not perform the same theatrics tonight. The Minister shook his head and said it is not happening but it is a widespread practice in public hospitals. Patients go in as a public patients. They are very sick, perhaps not fully compos mentisif they are very sick or have a fever, and are asked to sign a form. They would sign anything at such a time to get some pain relief and treatment or to try to get into a bed. They sign the form. It is not right. It is a shoddy and slippery practice. We would not do it in a normal business. We would not sign something without reading it. Sometimes we do but we should not. We are not allowed to read the form and then we are fleeced. One might be on a trolley for three nights, which happens regularly in my hospital in Clonmel, and in the mid-west and Limerick. A family could stay in the Gresham for the same amount people are charged for one night in hospital. It is €800 and they are on a trolley with no sleep. When a person is on a trolley there is no space and it is normally in a corridor. There is noise from machines and the traffic up and down of trolleys and nurses and doctors doing their jobs. There is also the noise of other admissions during the night. I would call it emotional terrorism.

Mr. O'Brien, the CEO of the HSE recently called people concerned about vaccines for children emotional terrorists. I am not commenting on the rights or wrongs of the vaccine. The emotional terrorism is taking place in emergency departments and on trolleys. There are vending machines running in the corridors. I have been in the hospital. Most of the time they do not have blankets or pillows and their families have to bring them in with them and neither do they have access to the equipment in the ward, such as drips. There is no space in my hospital in Clonmel in a narrow corridor. In a new hospital it is different. If a nurse or doctor is attending to a person on a trolley, nobody else can pass because there is not enough space. It is a fire hazard. I had occasion to call in the fire officer twice a couple of years ago such was the concern. It is a degradation and apart from the money issue, the treatment of patients is like emotional terrorism. One hears lack of sleep cited in the description of war crimes. We hear about people not being allowed to sleep because of noise and being interrupted but this is happening in hospitals.I am not blaming the nurses, doctors or attendants in the emergency departments. They are only doing their best. They do not have the space, facilities, equipment or wherewithal to deal with this issue.

Discharges are another problem. We are heading into Christmas now. I said this the last time. Most of those who work in hospitals, including those who work in backup administration will go off next Friday week or earlier. They will be at parties two nights that week and there will be no admissions organised until 5 January. There will be bedlam before we come back here whatever day we come back, whether it is 15 January or 18 January. It happens every year. As soon as Christmas Day comes it will happen because there will be no administration staff working, no discharges and no proper structure. Why can a skeleton staff not work over Christmas and organise things? It happens in every hospital in the country. It would not happen in the Mater Private or another private hospital. It would not happen in any of our businesses because we could not afford it. We would be out of business.

If the shopkeeper did not have milk and other products for the people to get messages the day after St. Stephen's Day, St. Stephen's Day or sometimes even on Christmas day now, they would not survive. There is disorganised chaos in the hospitals and it should be dealt with. They have the planning done for the Christmas week and most people are off. In America Christmas, Day is all people get off. Why do these staff in our hospitals have to be off for two weeks at Christmas? Consultants have already taken holidays and there are no rosters or anything organised. We are losing huge capacity. That is why when the surveys are done equipment, such CT scanners and so on, are at only 46% capacity usage.

We need more functionality and more output. We need more planning in these public hospitals. I am not blaming all the staff, but senior management and line management have to take responsibility. This happens in every hospital, as the Minister of State knows. There will be a skeleton staff and the rest are not back until 2 or 3 January. They then must start writing out to outpatients to come in again. They have to start the whole machine again. It is as if they let the furnace go down and it needs to be built up again slowly to get the whole thing going. It should not be happening but it happens every year.

To go back to health insurance, people and families are paying exorbitant prices for health insurance. I have a large family. We have moved our health insurance to different companies a couple of times. People get less and less cover for more and more money. Cá bhfuil an regulator? He or she is supposed to be doing a job, but that is not the case. We have regulators for everything in this country but the majority are not regulating anything - across the cement industry, across competition laws, everything. It is all regulators and no one being regulated. They and their staff are getting paid; why are they not looking at this insurance racket? If it looks like a racket, it is a racket.

People are put to the pin of their collars trying to pay insurance and then if they do not have this insurance they cannot get access to private treatment. When they have it and go into a public hospital, they are sleeping on trolleys and being charged exorbitant rates. A big family could stay in two or three rooms in the Shelbourne hotel for the price they pay to be stuck on a trolley in a hospital corridor. It is unacceptable and it goes on year-in year-out. Who will call a halt to it? When will it be halted? I ask the Minister of State for answers.

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