Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The two-tier health system which puts private patients first and leaves public patients to wait must end. The system is not an accident and has been overseen by successive Governments over the years. A constituent of mine in Laois contacted the HSE this month and was given a shocking waiting time of four to five years for her child to see a psychologist. The same timeframe applies in Offaly and in many other parts of the country. There is a one to three year waiting period for an assessment of needs. Parents are being told that there are extreme staff shortages across the two counties. Almost 2,000 children are on waiting lists for occupational therapy in Laois-Offaly, of whom 1,000 have been waiting for more than 12 months, and there are almost 400 children waiting for physiotherapy. This is to mention only two waiting lists among many. There are 436 people on a hospital waiting list in Portlaoise while there are 1,918 people on waiting lists in Tullamore.

Instead of increasing facilities across Laois and Offaly and across the system in general where we have a growing population in the State, we are cutting services. In the case of Portlaoise, we need retention of the full services in that hospital and we need to expand and provide more beds. We need the renovation of nursing homes such as those in Abbeyleix and Mountmellick and their expansion for use as step-down facilities to care for the elderly.

That there are more than 700,000 on waiting lists is outrageous. I thought when it hit 500,000 a national emergency would be declared. We have now broken 700,000 on hospital waiting lists and this needs to be treated as a national emergency.

The problems in the health services will take time to solve but nothing will happen if the Government does not begin the process. The Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, mentioned the implementation of the Sláintecare report. Most parties were on board with that. We need to push on with that and implement the Sláintecare report. We need to create a proper national health system here in this country - a single-tier public health system.

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