Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, for coming into the Chamber today but I must say I am disappointed that, again, the Minister of State with line responsibility, Deputy Jim Daly, did not see fit to be here. This is the second time for me to raise the issue here and although he is a Corkman I do not know where his loyalties lie at this stage. I spoke on the issue previously in November 2017. The issue is the filling of the permanent medical officer position at St. Patrick's community hospital in Fermoy. There are many other issues in my constituency that I would love to raise in the Topical Issue debate in this Chamber but I feel that I need to further emphasise the importance of filling the vacancy for the medical officer position.

I remind the Minister of State of the contents of the programme for Government. I refer to page 53 which relates to health, which states: "Efforts to increase access to safe, timely care as close to patients' homes as possible will be a priority for the new Partnership Government". It also states on page 55: "The HSE will be mandated to employ GPs on a salaried basis where needed and put in place support structures and staff". How does the Minister of State stand over the current situation in Fermoy?

Herein lies the kernel of the problem. First, there is not a full uptake of respite beds at present in St. Patrick's community hospital and, second, some eligible patients end up being sent to alternative nursing home or community hospital locations. That is not good enough, as we have a state-of-the-art facility in Fermoy. Families are being pressurised to second GPs to provide cover when the availability of a respite bed arises. I remind the Minister of State that not all patients or their GPs are from within the confines of Fermoy. Some patients who have been allocated a respite bed at St. Patrick's community hospital cannot avail of the care there. The reason is that their own family doctors cannot put themselves in a position to travel to the hospital and attend to them if and when the need arises. The offer of a bed, therefore, has to be declined. The HSE can cause a cold relationship between families and their doctors by passing on the blame. That is not going down well in the area.

In fairness to the HSE, it has communicated with me. It acknowledged the problem but does not consider it to be a crisis situation. How can we allow a situation where there is a half-filled temporary position to continue? The situation is beginning to reverberate around the entire north Cork area. The HSE seemed to indicate there was no problem in the context of Fermoy but in recent weeks I was shown a letter which was written to a constituent who was seeking a respite bed for her mother in another facility. She was advised that due to circumstances beyond the control of the HSE the availability of respite to clients across the north Cork community services area has recently been reduced. The letter went on to say that this had greatly increased the demand for respite services in Nazareth House in Mallow. That suggests the problem in Fermoy is starting to have a knock-on effect on other community hospitals. I urge the Minister of State to intercede or to ask the Minister with line responsibility to take urgent action to address the issue.

See this speech in context