Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy MacSharry. I begin by expressing my deepest sympathies with the families and friends of those who have passed away already because of Covid-19. Losing the people we love is always difficult but losing them in these circumstances, where there are restrictions on hospital visits, on funerals and on the ability of people to come together to help each other through that loss makes it an awful lot harder.

I join the Minister in expressing my deep gratitude to those who are on the front lines and are putting themselves at risk to keep the rest of us safe. They include healthcare professionals in our hospitals and communities. They also include a group of women and men who are spoken about less, but who are also very much on the front lines. In our healthcare facilities they include cooks, porters, administrators, cleaners and everybody else who is working to help healthcare professionals. They include home care and nursing home workers who go out every day out to directly support those who are the most vulnerable to Covid-19. Many do so despite being on very low wages, without medical training and, right now, without personal protective equipment.

The HSE, the Department of Health and the Government are working flat out on Covid-19 and some things are working well, including the opening up of private hospitals, testing centres, step-down facilities and more. I acknowledge that good work. We are struggling in other areas and I want to use my time to highlight two such areas.

The first is the need for much more urgent support for home care workers. The lack of personal protective equipment, training and support for them is very concerning. Yesterday, a home care worker in Dublin tested positive. She sees approximately ten elderly people every day, and every day those people change. She could see 50 elderly people each week. She lives with eight other home care workers who also see about ten people per day. It is entirely possible, given that 50% of transmissions occur when people are asymptomatic, that this healthcare worker, unbeknownst to her, may have infected some of the vulnerable people she looks after. It is also entirely possible that the other home care workers with whom she lives have now been infected and have done the same thing. The HSE told us yesterday that as of yet no personal protective equipment is being provided to home care workers. We know they are not getting medical training and I strongly urge the Government to move on this more quickly. We know resources are tight, but this seems like an area where very bad things could happen very quickly.

The second area I want to talk about is more support for nursing homes. I listened carefully to what the Minister said. I am not trying to criticise him, but yesterday we had a detailed briefing with the HSE and the level of supports and actions which the Minister outlined in his speech do not marry with what the HSE told us is actually happening. Yesterday, I was told that in one nursing home 70 of its 200 staff have tested positive. At the time I received this information, I was also told that 19 of the 100 residents had tested positive and four had passed away. In addition, three of the home's kitchen staff and several cleaning staff have gone. It does not know where it can get help, given that no agency staff are available. I imagine every Member in the House has been contacted with similar stories. The Minister will be aware of these cases. The situation is very serious. Nursing homes cannot get the staff they need, particularly in areas where additional skills, such as palliative care, are required. They cannot get their hands on personal protective equipment. They are receiving small amounts but that is not enough.

I know the HSE is trying to deploy its staff to try to plug some of these gaps, but much more is needed. We support the decision to deploy vast sums of money to build capacity in our healthcare system. However, it does not seem right that we would spend all of that money getting our healthcare system right so that when people get sick they can be helped without making the same efforts and investments for vulnerable people, home care and nursing homes in order to stop people getting sick in the first place. There needs to be urgent movement on that.

I would like to raise many more issues, but we are short of time. Perhaps the Minister and I could pick up the questions I have raised, which have come from nurses, doctors, scientists and families. Why are only 1,500 tests a day being done? Why are healthcare workers waiting so long for test results to allow them to get back to work? Why is Ireland running out of reagent when we have such a large chemical industry here? Why are clinicians still being told not to wear masks at work when many working in hospitals feel they should?

Why is the modelling work on projected cases being withheld from the public? Why is it not being made public? Why are private consultants being brought into the HSE temporarily being paid more than some of the HSE consultants? Why is the HSE not able to say yet how many cases it feels it will be able to handle on a given day.

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