Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion here tonight. It is an important motion.

We have to fix our sick health system. Despite the best efforts of many staff right across the health services, parts of the system are totally dysfunctional and in need of radical reform. They suffer from political neglect and little direction over the years.

We now need to build a national health system as outlined in the Sláintecare report that all parties in the House have bought into. Whatever we create of the health services, we must put patients first. This is something that we must not argue over.

The Sinn Féin motion demands that the Government legislate for mandatory open disclosure of information, in particular, where an error has occurred affecting a patient’s care. Whether the news is good or bad, whether it is that an error has occurred or whether the diagnosis has been correct, it is essential that that happens.

The consequences of the current cervical smear scandal are horrific. It is part of an unfortunate bundle of scandals. In scale and extent, it is surely the worst yet.

I pay tribute to Emma Mhic Mhathúna and Vicky Phelan for their bravery in coming out and bringing all of this to light, and wish them both well. Our thoughts are with them and their families.

People have not forgotten the deaths of babies in Portlaoise and Portiuncula hospitals. Certainly, those bereaved parents have not. Babies died between 2006 and 2013 in similar circumstances. They developed normally up to the time of the maternity treatment and reaching the maternity unit. Where was the patient access to information preceding this tragedy? It is important to put this in context. Leading to it also was the shortage of staff and substantial cuts in budget. In the case of Portlaoise, there was a considerable slash in the budgets at that time and a significant shortage of staff. These issues were well flagged over many years by staff at different levels in the hospitals. I welcome the fact that to a large extent these have now been addressed, the budgets have been restored and increased, and the staff levels in the case of the maternity unit doubled which shows that they were operating completely under strength.

I also pay tribute to Mark and Róisín Molloy and others who have called for open disclosure and accountability. We support that call here tonight. They came out strongly on that.

However, long investigations, long legal battles and long years of waiting and trying to squeeze the answer out of the top brass of the HSE is not the answer for patients and does not suit anyone. It is not the way to treat the public and it is not the way to treat patients.

Many staff throughout the HSE are doing sterling work, both in the hospitals and at administration and community levels. We all meet and come across them in our work every day. I pay tribute to them despite the fact that the system, as it is structured, cannot function due to its two-tier nature. We need to agree it is dysfunctional and move on.

In terms of transparency, it is important that the results of medical tests are given to patients and their GPs immediately. This is very simple. Why can that not happen? I saw a doctor dictating a letter into a dictaphone in front of a patient in a hospital the other day so that the patient knew exactly what was going back to his GP. The GP will have received that, if not that day then the next day, and the patient knew the contents of the outcome of the particular test. That is the way it should be. With this motion, we can create an environment of transparency and empowerment for patients and for staff.

In regard to overall reform, I again ask that action be taken on the all-party Sláintecare plan. Let open disclosure and accountability be at the heart of that and let us create the public healthcare system that we need.

We cannot undo some of the damage that has been done but what we can do at this point is make sure this type of thing never happens again. While we are Members of the Thirty-second Dáil, we should not lose a minute in improving things for the better.

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