Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrat Party for bringing forward this motion, which highlights aspects of a dysfunctional two-tier health system that exists in a permanent state of crisis. The problems in healthcare on this island are not accidental. They are not to do with personnel; they are structural in nature. They are the consequence of years of underfunding of our public health system, cuts, privatisation from below and neoliberal management. That neoliberal management seeks at every opportunity, which is demonstrated by the debate today, to extract money from people, even for things as essential as healthcare needs, through the application of charges for treatment and parking in hospitals. To add insult to injury, debt collectors are brought in on the act to extract their cut from ordinary people's requirement for healthcare.

In our budget statement, we called for the abolition of all inpatient and emergency department charges for public patients. According to a reply to a parliamentary question in respect of the matter, the cost involved would be €20 million. This was part of our proposals for a universal single-tier national health service free at the point of use and funded by means of progressive taxation. The removal of charges is also a Sláintecare recommendation. Nonetheless, those charges remain.This is deeply regressive and morally bankrupt; the charges should go.

The HSE doubles down on the inequity of these charges by using debt collectors to pursue patients in respect of those that remain unpaid. Rachel Morrogh, director of advocacy and external affairs at the Irish Cancer Society recently stated:

The Irish Cancer Society has heard from patients about the distress and anxiety that contact from a debt-collection agency chasing payment for hospital charges brings [and understandably so].

The worries and fears that are naturally brought on by cancer diagnosis are compounded by this practice and we want it to end.

An Irish Examinerreport in December told of a Ms Cogavin who was diagnosed at 48 with breast cancer. She said that a debt letter followed her out of the hospital after her surgery to remove a tumour. She said:

As soon as I went home, the bill followed you out from the hospital, whatever it was, two, three nights I stayed. They billed me up to €240 in inpatient charges.

As a newly diagnosed cancer patient, you're so angry and your entire existence is all over the place, and you have people chasing you for money.

This is scandalous. We also learned from the Irish Independentrecently that the HSE spent more than €568,000 on debt collectors to pursue patients for unpaid hospital bills during the pandemic. Charges for hospital care are regressive and immoral, and the HSE must immediately end the use of debt collection agencies to pursue outstanding charges and all related debts should be cancelled.

I also want to refer to the issue of-----

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