Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As winter arrives every year, so does the annual trolley crisis. By virtue of its definition, a crisis is something that cannot be predicted, yet nothing is more predictable than the annual wringing of hands while people at their most vulnerable face horrific conditions in our hospitals. It is not a crisis. It is as certain as a rainy day in January. We must stop describing it as a crisis. Instead, it must be seen as a symptom of the failure to properly build a functioning health system.

Today's trolley watch informed us that there are 5,041 people on hospital trolleys, lined up beside each other, positioned in corridors, doorways, cupboard spaces, kitchen facilities, etc. That is just not on. These are already stressed patients at their most vulnerable who are very often in places where they cannot get to sleep due to noise and interruptions. It must be acknowledged there are fantastic staff in the health services, doing their absolute best in unacceptable conditions. This is not a criticism of the staff.

If funding for home care packages and home help services were provided, it would certainly help people to get out of hospital quicker. Nursing Home Ireland, in a survey of its sector, identified 1,400 beds across 440 private and voluntary homes. On a temporary basis, this is the kind of initiative that could be taken to discharge people when they continue to need care in transition before they go home.

My colleague, Deputy Shortall, was the initiator of the Sláintecare report which offers a complete overhaul of our health service. It offers a vision for a functional health service in which we will not see such scenes with hospital trolleys. However, it has to be done in an ambitious way with the resources put in quickly to ensure we see some returns. The Minister could be the one where people look back and say he made the difference by being ambitious about this ten-year plan in the Sláintecare report. However, I do not see that ambition. All I see is this constant crisis of doing small pieces and gingerly moving things around the chessboard. It needs much more ambition to get this up and running.

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