Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this debate to the floor of the Dáil tonight, as it is very important and urgent. The HSE system is failing many sick and vulnerable people all over the country, young and old. Starting with older people in University Hospital Kerry in Tralee where people have been waiting on trolleys for anything up to two or three days in recent months. I refer to people over 80 years, including some who are 90. These men and women have given their lives to rearing families and working all their lives for their families, their communities and their country. They have got us to where we are today, and they are being badly let down.

We do not have enough GPs. Young and old who develop medical problems have to wait for as much as a week before they can be seen by a GP. This is not good enough. Patients have to wait months for MRIs, scans or X-rays. That is not acceptable. In the case of cancer, the disease may have progressed to another stage, making a successful outcome less achievable. Why can we not ensure that machines are kept working 24-7, like in the North of Ireland, for instance?

I thank the nurses, doctors and all the front-line staff who worked so hard, especially in the past two years with the coronavirus. They worked in terrible conditions and had to contend with staff shortages and expose themselves to contracting the virus.

We see what has happened with the CAMHS debacle in south Kerry where the HSE has failed to hire a senior consultant psychiatrist since 2016 and senior management failed to monitor what was going on for five years and the interventions meted out have permanently damaged the health of many. This is criminal. There is an urgent need to recruit psychologists to deal with children at an early age to prevent their mental health being damaged.

I firmly believe that abolishing the regional health boards was a major mistake, since the boards ensured that accountability was provided by departmental officials to elected members and senior consultants and doctors who ensured that a respectable level of service was in place for the sick and vulnerable. The Taoiseach has added to his CV that he is proud of getting rid of the regional health boards. He needs to look at that again.

I am pleased that Deputy Michael Collins from west Cork and I have successfully operated a cross-Border system for people who would have had to wait for three or four years to get their cataract removed and the same for hips and knees. To date, 84 buses have travelled to the North with the 84th bus going last Friday. One of the first patients on the first bus told me that his grandfather's cataract was removed in St. Catherine's Hospital in Tralee in 1986. That proves that it is backwards that we are going and not improving. The Minister must listen to that.

The HSE has totally let down boys and girls affected by scoliosis and spina bifida whose little spines are going out of shape more each day. The Taoiseach said he allocated €5.2 million, yet those who cannot afford to go abroad are still waiting and getting worse each day. That is not good enough. The Taoiseach will not say who is responsible, but Cappagh Hospital says it has consultants available to carry out the procedures.

I will give one example about the regional health boards that are so important. In 1986, the Department of Health proposed that six of the district hospitals in the Southern Health Board region would be closed. It was hell-bent on doing it, but lo and behold, wherever he is today, he is dead, but Jackie Healy-Rae was chairman of the Southern Health Board and he and the other elected members stopped the health board and the then Minister, Dr. Rory O'Hanlon, from doing that at the time. We have a new hospital in Kenmare today that is stretched to the limit, but we do not have all the beds open there. We need to open the beds. At least when elected people were responsible for deciding what was needed in an area, whether it was community care, a district hospital, if a public health nurse or doctor was needed or whatever else, those matters were dealt with in a progressive manner at the time. Now, there is no accountability at all from the HSE for what it is doing. It is a monster that has gone out of control, not the staff, doctors or nurses working in it, but the management. They are out of order. They are responsible to no one. We must give them as much as they want, be it €400,000 or €500,000 a year, but the people are suffering.

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