Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not responsible for operational decisions at the level of individual CT scanners, but I do not accept that this issue must wait until 2022. I will talk to the Minister for Health and the HSE about what is going on there. To be fair to all concerned, Roscommon hospital has been advanced in recent years. There were political rows about emergency departments and election commitments which perhaps were not grounded in the proper medical approach, but nonetheless effective investments were made in Roscommon hospital's outpatient and diagnostics capacity. There is no reason the CT scanner there should not be used. The Deputy has identified the issues around the CT scanner in Portiuncula. It is faulty to say the least and is not operating to satisfactory levels. It needs replacement, the sooner the better. I will pursue that issue.

On the wider issue, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, had arranged up to 66,000 outpatient appointments at the end of August. This supported public hospitals in providing access to diagnostics for patients as well as services for their outpatient departments. The treatment purchase fund will now work on both the diagnostic and the operational side where outpatients are concerned, and it will work to procure additional private sector capacity where it is required to facilitate increased diagnostics along with procedures. That will continue.

It has to be said that Covid-19 did impact on the entire health service. There is no point in pretending that Covid-19 or the lockdown did not happen or that there were not huge restrictions on hospitals which stopped a lot of elective procedures and diagnostics from happening for two or three months. There has been something of a recovery in that regard, albeit constrained by guidelines provided by public health advice, which is important. Patient safety in the context of Covid-19 is always at the forefront of these decisions. Unfortunately this has negatively impacted on throughput, volume of procedures and volume of diagnostics. Of that there is no doubt. The work to improve the situation around diagnostics is continuing.

I know the Deputy has for several years raised the issue of the situation in County Roscommon and the utilisation of the technology there. He has been pursuing the issue for the past five to six years and may know operationally what is going on there on the ground and be familiar with the inability of the two groups in question to connect more effectively. I will certainly pursue the matter and work with the Deputy and others to see whether we can get it resolved.

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