Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill because it provides important measures to ensure age and health status do not lead to price discrimination. However, it would be a real dereliction of my duty as a TD if I did not take the opportunity to outline the current state of healthcare provision in my constituency of Longford-Westmeath. I think all parties in the House have at some point given a commitment to working towards a universal public system where people are treated on the basis of need and not on ability to pay but are we actually any closer to providing meaningful healthcare reform? No, we are not. Are we any closer to that universal, national health service? No, not really. That is why 40% of people in the country rely on health insurance in a market worth €2.5 billion annually across three main providers. The number of people availing of and reliant on private health insurance has increased consistently since the recession. One of the main reasons for that, and the reason people who can ill afford to spend hundreds if not thousands of euro on these premiums annually do so, is fear. They themselves fear they will get sick or that a family member will, and we all know the fastest route to assessments and treatment is private health insurance. That is a fact. It is one I find abhorrent but it is a fact nonetheless. It is also indisputable that those who cannot afford private health insurance are left languishing on a public waiting system watching the days, weeks, months and in some cases years go by as they wait for that all-important appointment to arrive.

I have a constituent who maintains that while the official cause of death of his beloved wife was cancer, in reality she died from poverty. She had gone to the doctor and was waiting for an appointment for scans and diagnostic tests but without private insurance time was passing by and her condition was deteriorating. Martina presented to her doctor while in severe pain. Frustrated and concerned the GP rang an ambulance and she was admitted through accident and emergency, where she got the necessary tests and the treatment began. She was in hospital for her fourth dose of chemotherapy when her first public appointment letter arrived. Now, her widower is left torturing himself with the what-ifs. What if they had private health insurance? What if her diagnosis and treatment had begun sooner? It is hard to dispute his logic and his conclusion that his wife died because she did not have insurance and therefore did not have access to the timely care and treatment she so desperately needed while she was still alive.

There can be no denying we have a two-tier healthcare system that needs to be phased out once and for all. The reality is that people get treated more quickly based on their monetary work and their bank balance rather than their health needs. That shameful situation needs to end. We should have no more cases like Martina's. There should be no more tortured widowers.

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