Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It has been said here tonight that there are 73 patients on trolleys in CUH, with 13 waiting for beds in the Mercy Hospital. What we are facing at the moment is not surprising but it is unprecedented. I am glad the Minister and the Ministers of State are present. The Government is closing a 22-bed mental health respite centre in Midleton, the Owenacurra centre, in the middle of a health crisis. As I raised with one of the Ministers of State in a Topical Issue debate before Christmas, we have excessive deaths in nursing homes, in particular in CareChoice in Ballynoe, east Cork, with no independent inquiry, so there is nothing moving forward there. Last October, there was a pilot project and a feasibility study on ambulance services bringing patients to Mallow General Hospital instead of CUH, and we have seen no progress on that either.

My biggest fear, and the reason the motion was tabled, is that we need to push forward because people are terrified to go to the emergency department. Our front-line workers are probably the best in the world and they are not getting the support they need. The HSE management is top heavy and that has to be addressed. I recall a number of years ago talking to a gentleman who had had a triple heart bypass and he was on a trolley in a hall with no privacy, and that hall was absolutely jammers. That has not changed in seven or eight years. Unfortunately, the Government has normalised an unsafe, undignified and inhumane health service, which is nothing that we should ever be proud of. I appeal to the Government to start to address this immediately. If asses have to be kicked at top level, then kick those asses because patients are dying.

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