Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the end of January, the National Treatment Purchase Fund reported that there were 72,684 people on waiting lists in Cork hospitals. Almost 30,000 of those had been waiting more than one year for treatment. To be clear, these people are not waiting for minor treatments. They are waiting on life-changing and, in some cases, life-saving treatments. More than 100 people alone are waiting more than one year for cardiothoracic surgery in Cork University Hospital, CUH. People with heart and lung disease are desperately waiting for surgery to give them a chance at hope.

In the Mercy University Hospital, there are more than 900 people waiting for pain management. Anyone who suffers from chronic pain will say that without proper pain management, they are not living, but surviving. We are leaving people on these waiting lists for months and even years to waste their lives away because of the mismanagement by successive Governments of the health service.

Sinn Féin has a plan for healthcare in Cork. We will open a new elective hospital on the northside. We will not play politics with announcements of dates and locations and we will not break promise after promise on these announcements. We will build it and open it as quickly as possible. Sinn Féin and Deputy Cullinane have a vision that would make the health service an attractive place for people to work in order that we would continue to keep those skilled graduates working within the health service.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, said in January that trolley figures were spiralling out of control in Cork. In February, it said that it was a dangerous situation. We are bringing forward solutions. I ask that the Minister takes them on board. Tá daoine ag fanacht le seirbhísí sláinte. It is time for change.

The Minister said earlier that we were here because of decades of underinvestment. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in power for those decades. The Taoiseach was the Minister for Health. The Tánaiste was the Minister of Health. Fianna Fáil has come in here to say it is the past but Fianna Fáil supported Fine Gael in confidence and supply for four years. It has been in government for two years. Here we are, six years later, in a worse position, outside of Covid. We were in a terrible condition before Covid. People are sick of excuses. They are sick of the blame game. They are sick of the Government not doing its job and the 900,000 people who are on waiting lists are just sick.

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