Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion. We in Sinn Féin will support it.

The various issues which accompany long Covid have yet to be properly researched and identified. There is no doubt but that many have caught the disease, many of whom I know, and continue to suffer. Some 90%, I think, who have it continue to suffer. Their lives are on hold and many of the up to 200,000 people suffering from it are suffering in silence.

The Regional Group is right to highlight the waiting list figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund, the 79,000 people on those lists and the further 625,000 or more awaiting an outpatient appointment, and the difficulties the Irish College of General Practitioners and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have outlined. I also draw attention to the acute hospital in Kerry, University Hospital Kerry, which is at breaking point. If we do not have confidence in the Government to deal with issues of health, housing and even direct provision, how can we have any confidence that it will deal with this issue properly? As for the hospital in Kerry, more damning information emerged recently. In July, August and September of this year, admission through University Hospital Kerry's accident and emergency department was far above the State average 12-hour waiting time. The most alarming statistic was probably that for over-75s. In July, there was a 22-hour waiting time. Although things improved somewhat in August and September, for all patients there was a waiting time of 15 hours in those months. In that same period, 28% of all patients in the hospital in Kerry had to wait over 24 hours to be admitted. Performance, once patients are admitted, is poor also, with wait times exceeding three days both for those aged over 75 and under 75 years for all three months of that quarter. The winter plan is no more than a smokescreen as the real work, the planning, should have been done over a multi-year period. This motion goes some way towards addressing those issues, and I hope the Deputies in the House, in particular Deputies from Kerry, will support it.

There is also a difficulty and a crisis in home care, which has been brewing for many's the year. In my region there are 651 people waiting for home care, a gap that is often filled by relatives and friends. We need a proactive, strategic approach to workforce planning across all healthcare.

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