Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In other counties, parents are being told there is no waiting list because there are no therapists. Children with scoliosis are not being operated on for three years. That means that their spines are being allowed to curve to 100 degrees, more than twice what happens in other European countries. In some cases, such as that of Aaron Daly and his daughter, Sophia, parents are being told that because they have been waiting so long surgery is no longer possible.

Today, doctors all over Ireland will meet patients who have life threatening and terminal conditions. In some cases, those doctors will know that had they seen them earlier, had the diagnostics been done sooner or had the patients not had to wait so long, they would be treatable. This is the reality of healthcare in Ireland today. This is what the budget needed to address and one would think that with a spending increase of €1.6 billion, it could have done that, but it did not.

As with so much from this Government, the health budget is spin. It is an optical illusion designed to make the Government look busy while disguising its failures. The Government boasts of significant additional spending. It states proudly that this is a Sláintecare budget, but that is absolute drivel. The total spending on healthcare will increase by €1.6 billion. That amount could have made a huge difference. It could have secured for tens of thousands of people the treatment they need. It could have built beds, hired clinicians and funded new drugs. It could have launched Sláintecare, which is the plan to modernise our healthcare system so that people do not spend years on waiting lists and can access healthcare, not if they can afford it, but when they need it. In spite of beginning the year with the largest health budget in the history of the State, the Minister for Health will end the year with the longest waiting lists in the history of the State and will still have managed to overspend by €750 million.

Of the €1.6 billion in additional funding, €2 in every €5 will be needed to cover that overspend. Another €2 in every €5 is needed for pay agreements and to account for demographics. That leaves €1 in every €5 for improved services. Of that €1, between 10 and 15 cent is for Sláintecare. At least €600 million is needed to launch Sláintecare, but due to Government mismanagement, the strategy will get less than a tenth of that, which means that next year it will not be implemented in any meaningful way. Public spending on health has increased every year since 2013. Total spending on health has increased every year since 2010. In 2016, the Minister for Health inherited the largest health budget in the history of the State, one of the highest per capitaspends anywhere on earth. In 2017 and 2018, that budget went up again. Somehow people are waiting longer than ever before to see doctors, to get scans and to be operated on. There is a recruitment crisis in our hospitals, consultant posts cannot be filled, six in ten general practitioner, GP, surgeries cannot take on new patients, nurses are considering strike action for the first time in 20 years and yet, on top of this, we heard on Tuesday that the Minister has also overspent by €750 million.

Now we are told that the money is not there. Some €750 million can be found down the back of the couch to pay for mismanagement. We are told money cannot be found to pay for children with special needs, children with scoliosis, lifesaving drugs, the reversal of the FEMPI legislation for GPs, pay equality for new entrants or Sláintecare? The budget details were still being agreed on Monday. Given the severity of what was announced on Tuesday, one would have be expected the Minister for Health to be at work fighting on behalf patients and clinicians. That is what the Fianna Fáil team was doing. However, the Minister was opening a playground in Wicklow.

The healthcare system is in crisis. Official figures put the waiting lists at in excess of 700,000. If we add those waiting for diagnostics and mental health treatment and children waiting for therapists, the total is 1 million. None of this is inevitable. Healthcare is not some unfixable black hole. Between 1997 and 2010, Fianna Fáil increased healthcare spending. It opened 1,600 hospital beds, added 40% more consultant posts, introduced the nursing degree and doubled student nursing places, launched the national cancer screening programmes, launched the national cancer strategy and introduced a massive increase in home care. Deaths from cancer fell by 11%, infant mortality fell by one third, cardiovascular disease fell by 40%, deaths from heart attack fell by half and deaths from stroke fell by half. The credit for this does not go to Fianna Fáil; it goes to the doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, scientists and all of the other amazing women and men working in our healthcare system. However, Fianna Fáil knew how work with them to get results on behalf of patients. Waiting times fell from years to months, but that is not the case anymore. In 2011, the number of people waiting more than six months for a hospital appointment was less than 10,000; today, more than 35,000 people are waiting. For every person waiting more than a year for surgery in 2010, there are now 20 people waiting more than a year. How is it possible to mess things up so badly in healthcare, given so much money?

If the €1.6 billion announced on Tuesday represented real new investment I would welcome it. If it had the foresight to reverse FEMPI measures for GPs and not tie them to a new GP contract, I would welcome it. If it comprehensively addressed the fact that we cannot recruit doctors in our hospitals, I would welcome it. If it was used to improve the working conditions for nurses, I would welcome it. If it was being used to build enough new community and hospital beds rather than cover overspend, I would welcome it. It does none of these things. Next year our doctors and nurses will remain overstretched. Our hospitals will remain over-capacity. Our patients will continue to wait and suffer and every one of them deserves better.

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