Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

HSE targets are like a moveable goal. Targets are set at random but are never met. Following a similar debate last year in the House, a target of 100,000 additional outpatient appointments were promised but we were to find that only 33,000 happened. What transpired with the person who set the 100,000 target or what happened to people who only had 33,000 come through the doors? Where is the accountability? In the first four weeks of January 500 procedures were cancelled. I was contacted by the parents of a young girl with cystic fibrosis who were getting her ready for an operation. They spent three months readying their young daughter for her operation. They got to the hospital, she was on the bed and she was being prepped for the operation. Half an hour before the operation was to go ahead, they told her it could not go ahead because they did not have a proper bed for her. What about the damage done to the parents and the daughter after what they had to do to get her there in the first place? She was on the operating bed in the hospital only to be told to go home. They were told they did not know when the reschedule the operation because they did not have a proper bed for that child. That can never happen again. We have to make sure the staff in our hospitals have the proper equipment and management skills to make sure no child or other patient who goes in for an operation has to leave the hospital and go home after three months of preparation for such a big operation?

Will the Ministers of State please ensure the accountability of management?

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