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

I welcome any Bill that will help to strengthen and make our health service better. I understand the need to regulate and ensure that the patient receives the best treatment at all times because we are all fine until we get sick. When people present with some problem, they need to be treated properly. In that vein I must mention the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Kerry. The problem of teenagers and young adults being overmedicated appeared in south Kerry some months ago and now it is manifesting in north Kerry. My concern now is that this may be widespread throughout the country. Is it the policy of the HSE to just drug people up in order to calm them down or whatever? If that is so, I do not think it was right to do that. In south Kerry, a junior doctor was blamed, but now it is in north Kerry.

People have problems at the accident and emergency department in University Hospital Kerry in Tralee with the queues and all that is going on there. What has been allowed to happen and allowed not to happen in that hospital is totally unsavoury. We in the hinterland of Kerry, all the way down into Cahersiveen and Valentia Island, and even people from parts of north-west Cork and west Limerick, depend on the hospital so much. People who become sick are waiting for hours or even days. Elderly people, some 90 years of age, have sometimes been on a trolley for a day, a day and a half or two days. Recently a 92-year-old woman spent two and a half days on a trolley.

Other speakers have mentioned this issue. It is the natural desire of elderly people to stay in their homes for as long as they can. They feel they are being sent to the departure lounge if they have to go into a nursing home for the end of their days. They are really worried that the end is near. If they had home help, they could stay in their homes much longer. The problem is that people get an allocation for the extra time they need, but then no one turns up.

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