Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to question the Taoiseach on the lack of meaningful health reform in our health service. The consequences of not changing our model of care are plain to see. Fine Gael has been in power for eight years and this Government has been in power for the past three years. In those past three years, we have seen little or no health reform. In fact, the situation has deteriorated. The Taoiseach talks about health reform but he fails to implement what is glaringly obvious. Time is not in our side as demand for our health service continues to grow with our ageing population.

Sláintecare is now two years old. It still awaits transitional funding to trigger meaningful roll-out and delivery of better care to our patients. Sláintecare is stranded in the doldrums of inertia. There is much talk about implementation but no implementation. We cannot reform the health service from current spend. It is not possible. Specific independent, targeted funding is needed. Without this, Sláintecare will be just another report. Transitional funding is needed to shift the balance of care towards community care while at the same time delivering on unmet need. New models of data gathering, digital healthcare records and individual patient identifiers are essential so that we can gather data which will make meaningful progress in informing how we reform our health service.

The HSE service plan for 2019 indicates the HSE will struggle to maintain services at 2018 levels, which in themselves were inadequate, and will not deliver services as we require them in 2019. We still do not have multi-annual budgets. Without this, long-term planning is impossible. Unmet need will continue to grow as elective care will be limited by necessity. We will be providing only essential and urgent care in our hospitals. The expected increase in emergency admissions this year will diminish the ability to provide elective care.

Meeting current and future challenges within our service as it is currently designed is not sustainable. The service is facing extraordinary challenges and will need an extraordinary response. The capacity of our service is at maximum, with ever-increasing unmet need. Our hospitals are operating at 100% capacity which, internationally, is recognised as unsafe. We have a shortage of intensive care unit, ICU, beds, which limits elective care. We need 8,000 extra beds over the next ten years unless we engage in extraordinary health reform. Opening 200 beds this year is wholly inadequate. We educate our graduate nurses, doctors, consultants and general practitioners, GPs, for export. This feeds into inadequate quality in the services that we provide. The affect of this on our population is clear, with 100,000 people on trolleys, 70,000 awaiting elective care and 500,000 on waiting lists.

Will this be the legacy that this Government leaves behind? When will the Government deliver the extraordinary response that is needed to reform our health service?

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