Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has previously addressed this but I wanted to raise again the issue of access to ophthalmology services in the CHO 4 region, which covers County Kerry, north Cork, north Lee, south Lee and west Cork, which is presenting challenges. More than €200,000 has been spent on private providers in this area in the past while and more than 3,000 children are still waiting for ophthalmology intervention in the area. It appears that recruitment continues to be a significant issue. On 2 December 2022 I received correspondence from the South/SouthWest Hospital Group on foot of representations I made by way of a parliamentary question, where I asked the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, the number of staff, the grade and the length of service of each member currently assigned to ophthalmology services across Cork hospitals and the number of vacancies in the same hospitals. I was told that there were approximately 39 whole-time equivalents in Cork University Hospital, CUH, but that the number of vacancies for whole-time equivalents is two. For South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, SIVUH, it is 25 with a vacancy rate there of 2.7 whole-time equivalents while in the Mercy University Hospital, MUH, the number that came back is zero. The Minister told me that the South/SouthWest Hospital Group has advised that it "expects the new operating theatres will be opened in March 2023".

Will the €5 million ophthalmology unit will become operational in March, as has been articulated in the past? What comfort can the Minister of State give to those people who are seeking to access public services now that the required number of vacancies will be filled? I fully appreciate that the HSE will spend considerable amounts of taxpayers' money on waiting list initiatives but the cost to the Exchequer of waiting list initiatives is increasing dramatically. In November 2021, 39 patients were referred to one of these lists at a cost of €15,000 while in June last year, 559 patients were referred to a private company at a cost of €83,000. If we want to get people through the list, that is fine and I do not think anybody has any issue with that but is not good value for money when we have a unit costing €5 million that is supposed to be for public service sitting there and there are still recruitment issues into the public service. We do not want to see a continuation of a waiting list initiative by private providers when it can be done through the public realm. It all boils down to the 3,022 children waiting for ophthalmology interventions I represent. That is a significant number. I seek comfort from the Minister of State that what the taxpayer has invested in will become operational.

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