Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion tabled by the Rural Independent Group. We all know that the health service is in need of radical reform. The HSE is more or less dysfunctional as it is organised. There are long waiting lists; there is a two-tier system and there has been a range of scandals, the most recent being the cervical screening scandal. The HSE's response has been nothing short of outrageous.

All parts of the health system are important, but the emergency department strand is the vital front line. Dealing with emergencies, as the Minister and I both know, cannot be delayed, as we can see right across the hospital system. We saw it during the winter period with the trolley crisis. I saw it at first hand in Portlaoise hospital where its emergency department is part of the emergency department network. The numbers attending it have increased year on year and there are now almost 40,000 attendances every year. Capacity within emergency departments across the State must be increased. Everyone is saying this, including patients, people working in the hospital system and anyone who has observed what is happening. What we have in Portlaoise is a service that has been threatened and much promised consultation with local medics and the community. That consultation process needs to start. The time for decisions on Portlaoise hospital is now. We need to get the ball rolling to put in place the plan that is badly needed for the hospital, to provide the necessary resources and to secure staff. Staff will come once there is certainty about the hospital. I urge the Minister to do this.

I want to touch briefly on another strand of the health service - the home help service which needs to be expanded. People are waiting for months for essential services. Some have been on a waiting list since 2017 to be allocated home help hours. Home helps are one of the success stories of the HSE. It is one of the good services it provides. However, we need more home helps because there is an ageing population which will only increase as the years pass by. If we had them, it would ensure people could be kept in their homes and communities where they want to be. It would also mean patients could be discharged in good time, thereby freeing up critical hospital beds. It would save money because providing a few home help hours is much cheaper than providing private or public nursing homes place or critical care hospital beds.

I plead with the Government to act now and begin to implement the Sláintecare plan, on which there is broad agreement and on which the Rural Independent Group has brought forward this motion in order that we can build a proper national health system. The HSE has been shot through. Organisationally, it is totally dysfunctional, as I have suspected for years. The past seven years during which I have been trying to deal with it have proved that to me. There are some very good people working in it, but they are frustrated because the system, as it is organised, cannot deliver.

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