Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That was Sligo University Hospital. It is the same in any hospital throughout the country. The situation is dire in so many of our hospitals around the country. I accept that the Minister can come to the Chamber and tell us about all the great work that is happening. He is in the middle of everything but nothing seems to be concluded. Certainly, in the experience of the people dealing with the health service, they do not see the results. That is the problem we have got. We really need to sort this situation out.

I will return to the matter of Caredoc, which is the out-of-hours service in the north west that deals with counties Donegal and Leitrim. We have a serious situation with NoWDOC where, at present, it is worked between Caredoc and the HSE. It is now proposed that Caredoc will take over NoWDOC entirely and the HSE will withdraw from it. This is a process I see all over the country. It seems to be the case that the HSE wants to do no work itself but wants to privatise it all. It wants to bring private companies in to run everything. I received an email from a staff member there, which states she is very concerned about the selling out to the private contractor Caredoc, where the only reasons for taking over this service will be to make profit. There is no doubt in her mind that corners will be cut, that there will be no nurse presence in Carrick-on-Shannon and eventually, once established and under the radar, they will stop doing home visits and move the service centre out of Carrick-on-Shannon to Sligo. This is the real fear an awful lot of the staff working in this service have. They see this happening under their very noses. When we write to or contact the HSE, we are told there is nothing really to talk about here, and these are private negotiations it is having with a private provider, which has nothing to do with the public. It certainly has an awful lot to do with the public when they cannot get a service and when the service is being withdrawn from them.

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