Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry; the health service has improved dramatically. Cancer care has improved dramatically because, and I stress this point, of the concentration of services. I saw all the protests against the concentration of cancer services in regions all over this country. I saw the pickets and large meetings that people like the Deputy excel in. While people in the Deputy's position are entitled to their view, I am not sure that the position the Deputy was articulating at any given time was in the best interests of patients. I can remember petitions coming in looking to keep the cancer service in a particular local hospital and keep the heart treatment in another hospital. We now know that having concentrated cancer services through the national cancer control programme and having brought skill sets together through multidisciplinary teams, we are getting better outcomes for patients with cancer. We want to be more ambitious into the future. We are getting better outcomes for patients with heart disease. We are getting better outcomes for stroke patients with some dramatic improvements there. We need to do more on COPD and there is much more.

We need to analyse who is going into emergency care and who is not. The enhanced community care programme is the way to go. We need to prevent many people going into accident and emergency departments by getting in earlier and by preventing. In my view, there is no point in senior citizens going to an emergency department which is overcrowded and which does not benefit them when they could get a better faster service and the health service is working on that.

Regarding Navan and the ambulance bypass protocol, the Deputy knows that Our Lady's Hospital already has an ambulance bypass programme for patients who have suffered a stroke, heart attack and major trauma.

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