Dáil debates

Thursday, 12 December 2019

Patient Safety (Notifiable Patient Safety Incidents) Bill 2019: Second Stage

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps we could have a bit more open disclosure from the Government and maybe we could be more accepting of that in this House when Ministers have to come in here to correct the record. The Government must lead by example. All Members must lead by example. If we are to require healthcare professionals across Ireland to stand up and do the right thing, to be honest and to hold their hands up and say they got something wrong, we must also do so.

I will conclude on a political point. The greatest source of patient safety incidents is not our clinicians but the crises that are unfolding in our healthcare system today. Yesterday, RTÉ reported that two patients had waited three weeks on trolleys at Limerick University Hospital. Elderly men and women are waiting for days on trolleys. Safe staffing levels have not been met. Diagnostic suites are not open when our clinicians need them. Our GPs do not have the resources they need. Our public health nurses are stretched extraordinarily thinly. If we preside over a public healthcare system in which, through no fault of their own, our healthcare professionals are understaffed, overworked and stressed out of their minds, then it is the Government that is the single greatest source of failures in patient safety, not clinicians. While it is not part of this legislation, we should reflect on the fact that while we ask our healthcare professionals to put their hands up and admit errors, perhaps this Government should put its hands up and apologise to healthcare professionals for putting them in that position in the first place.

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