Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Táimid buíoch do Shinn Féin as an rún seo a thabhairt agus beimid ag tacú leis. We thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion, which we will support. Ireland's health service is an underfunded shambles by design, held together by the superhuman efforts of undervalued and underpaid health workers who have been pushed to their limit. Every aspect of healthcare is beset by large waiting lists, and the Sinn Féin motion sets out the overall numbers clearly. We should remind ourselves that every one of those numbers represents somebody who needs care. These people are waiting for treatment that would be life changing were they to receive it. Some people, such as the 649 children awaiting orthopaedic surgery who were highlighted recently, are waiting so long that their condition may become inoperable, and often they are condemned to live a life unnecessarily blighted by illness and pain. The spina bifida paediatric advocacy group has reported that 56 children have been waiting between one and four years for orthopaedic surgery to correct the condition, which can cause paralysis of the legs, often accompanied by hydrocephalus, or water on the brain.We all heard recently of large waiting lists for CAMHS and how understaffing leads to the inappropriate medicating of children.

Earlier today, some of our members attended the Patients Deserve Better campaign, which was launched to advocate for the provision of additional neurological nurses to deal with what was described at the launch as a critical resource issue. The campaign set out why the Government needs to recruit an additional 100 neurological nurses to bring the national number to the recommended figure of 142. Apparently, 800,000 people - a shockingly high number - in Ireland live with neurological conditions. They are people with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy and other, less serious conditions. The campaigners outlined how close to 24,000 people are on the public waiting list for neurological outpatient care, 8,600 of whom have been waiting for more than 18 months. Recruitment of additional neurological nurses is required to reduce the current waiting lists. According to the Neurological Alliance of Ireland, Dublin alone needs 57 additional nurses. St. James's Hospital, for example, has four neurological nurses and needs 14, a shortfall of ten; Tallaght hospital has 3.5 nurses and needs 20, a shortfall of almost 17. We fully support the Patients Deserve Better campaign and call on the Government to urgently recruit the additional 100 neurological nurses who are needed. Neurological nurses play a crucial clinical role in providing advice, counselling and educational support. A speaker at the launch indicated how one neurological nurse in her hospital is not available for public patients.

This brings me to one my main points, regarding the question of public ownership of our healthcare system. The Minister did not use the word "Sláintecare" once. It is as though the strategy has gone out of circulation and into the history books. One of the main problems facing our public health service relates to the existence, in a large way, of private practice in public hospitals, and of so many private hospitals and services. At every turn, public moneys are drained off by private interests, and this is central to the dysfunction and lack of resources facing the HSE and the public healthcare system. We saw it starkly during the height of the Covid crisis, when millions of euro was paid out to take the private hospital capacity into public control, but as soon as we were out of the woods, it was handed right back, leaving us short by millions of euro that had been put into the private healthcare system.

We have a very low hospital bed number per capita by international standards, as well as a very low number of ICU beds. The lack of capacity in our public healthcare system is one of the main reasons we have such enormous waiting lists, as are detailed in the motion. The Irish Hospital Consultants Association has called for 6,000 additional public hospital beds and 4,500 community step-down and rehabilitation beds to alleviate pressure on the system. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation recently stated that the health service is rapidly returning to the bad old days of overcrowding in every aspect. Those who can afford to do so avail of private hospitals to access the care they need, while those who are dependent on the public service continue to join the waiting lists and wait ever longer. I am reminded of the famous Joan Baez song, recorded in the 1960s and giving voice to poor communities in the US, in which she sang, "If living were a thing that money could buy, you know the rich would live and the poor would die”. In our healthcare system, that often happens, but there is no doubt poorer people suffer more.

We believe it is time for private hospitals to be taken into public ownership to add to the capacity we urgently need in the public healthcare system. If evidence were needed of a lack of commitment to even grappling with that problem, it is to be found in the future of the national children's hospital and the proposed new national maternity hospital. The former is being built with more than a dozen private suites, allowing private medicine to flourish within the hospital, while the latter is being built in the ownership of a private company. That is why I intend to move the amendment People Before Profit has tabled, wherein we call on the Government to take all hospital capacity and private organisations currently delivering healthcare and social care into public ownership as part of a single-tier national health service. This, coupled with the removal of private practice from public hospitals, would give us that single-tier, entirely public system, free at the point of need, at the core of a new national health service, which we so badly need.

Glaoimid ar an Rialtas gach ospidéal príobháideach a chur faoi úinéireacht phoiblí.

I hereby move the amendment.

See this speech in context