Dáil debates

Tuesday, 21 June 2022

Our Lady's Hospital Navan Emergency Services: Motion [Private Members]

 

8:00 pm

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

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion, which I support. I pay tribute to the people in Navan and the region for mobilising and coming out in their thousands to defend and seek to ensure the future of their hospital. They are absolutely right to do so. I understand there is another protest planned for 9 July. It is only through those people-power mobilisations that the hospital and emergency department in Navan will be defended. I would prepare those people by saying that they will hear all sorts of positive soothing noises, in particular from Government Deputies in the area telling them not to worry; that it will be okay and so on, but the people who have been mobilising and campaigning for so long know that what is being attempted here is really death by a thousand cuts. If the Government and the HSE are not checked or stopped by a movement which says "No" and that it needs to continue to have a full, proper emergency department in Navan, then that process will continue. It is only people power that will be able to stop it. When campaigners who attend protests and meetings wonder if it will be okay and that there is a medical basis to the logic of centralisation, which is always the argument they try to make, I would just tell them to look at the experience of the mid-west region. On a daily basis, the same arguments were made then in terms of the closure of regional hospitals. It was said that it makes sense and that we had to centralise hospitals, but the resources were not put in place in Limerick and the result is that there is massive overcrowding on a daily basis. The disaster of this process of centralisation, which in reality becomes an excuse for cutbacks and downgrading, is just witnessed on a daily basis in Limerick and in the mid-west region. That is why this plan must be stopped.

One of the good points made in the motion is about the extraordinary waiting times for emergency departments at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. What struck me when looking at them is that we are talking about nine, 11 and 12 hours across the State as an average. In Tallaght Hospital at the moment, the average wait time for someone going to the accident and emergency department is 18 hours. It is scandalous. The figures across the country are scandalous. That is just the average. People are left waiting significantly longer than that. The wait time in the accident and emergency departments in Tallaght, Drogheda and Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown is an emergency, but it is no accident. The waiting times are the result of decades of neglect of the health service by successive Governments underfunding hospitals, running the staff ragged, not providing the investment into hospitals to expand capacity and not bringing private hospitals into public ownership, but instead continuing with the logic of a two-tier health service - almost a three-tier health service. That only works if there is a problem with the public tier, whether that is the first, second or third tier. The private tier will not make any money if the public health service provides the sort of service that people need. Instead of downgrading hospitals, we need investment to improve hospitals across the board, to hire more staff, support the staff that we have, and to build a top-quality Irish national health service that we can be proud of.

I want to take the opportunity to raise some other health-related points with the Minister in terms of the current situation regarding Covid. One point I want to make is that there are now 200 health workers who have been long-term sick with Covid, who now face having the sick leave scheme they are on being closed down at the end of this month. The Minister is saying it is not happening. I hope that is definitely the case. They are workers who helped to keep the health service running during the crisis. Many of them caught the virus through their work and are now suffering debilitating long-term Covid. What has been reported is that the Government was planning to pull the rug out from them, scrapping the paid leave scheme, and failing to engage with SIPTU. If the Minister is saying that is not going to happen, that is very welcome news. In this debate, the focus should be on Navan, but it is important for the Minister to make a statement about what is happening in terms of the Covid situation. The INMO's members are the people on the front lines. They are ringing the alarm bells in terms of the levels of hospitalisation. More than 600 people are in hospital and the rate of increase in hospitalisation is more than 16% week on week. In comments from the Minister or the Government in the media generally we hear a lot of talk of living with Covid, but if that is to mean anything, the Government must do some things to enable us to live with Covid. We cannot just continue as normal and say we are living with Covid, because then the results will be tens, then hundreds then thousands of unnecessary deaths, both through Covid and through the impact on the health service generally.

We need to see a plan and action on living with Covid. I will quickly say a few things. We need to get back to a situation where people are wearing masks inside, on public transport, in crowded spaces and so on. The best way for the Government to signal that, and for it to happen, is to send out quality FFP2 or N95 masks, the kind of masks we get for free in Leinster House, to people in their homes, to have them available at public transport locations, such as bus stations, train stations, etc., and just try to renormalise the idea we need to go back for a period to wearing masks, where people possibly can do so. There should be big public health advertisements around it and so on. Let us invest in this; it makes sense to do it.

I was disappointed to see the free antigen tests for relatives of those who have Covid have now been removed. We should encourage as much testing as possible throughout the population in order that people find out when they have Covid as quickly as possible. Antigen tests should be made free to all.

I will make a final point on ventilation. It is now more than six months since we passed the Bill giving workers the right to clean air through ventilation and filtration, including in schools. On that day, 1 December, the Minister of State, Deputy English, said not to worry, the Government was not just plámásing us and was very eager to have this implemented, that it might make sense to do it through regulation, to which the Government was very open, and that he would give us a call-----

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