Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree with Deputy Cullinane's amendment. We have been discussing a lot of issues since we started this debate to do with nursing homes and community hospitals. Patient advocacy services are a channel for people who witness or encounter difficult situations, not in every nursing home, but in some and in some community hospitals. Families came to me to say the standards in community hospitals were not up to HIQA standards and a lot of questions need to be answered. Those families are not sure where those questions can be channelled through. I hope this amendment helps them in some way. There is the Independent Patient Safety Council and the patient advisory services.

I know the following is a slightly different issue but it is an important one to touch on. I was contacted by the family of a gentleman who was killed in a hospital in Cork recently and they are very upset. They need to be able to channel their sadness and hurt. That family has strong connections with west Cork and that gentlemen encountered a shocking situation. We support this amendment and we hope that the standards in most of our community hospitals, such as the top class standards in St. Gabriel's Community Hospital in Schull, are in every community hospital and nursing home in our country. After working hard for all their lives our elderly people deserve to have comforts and their families deserve to have the comfort of knowing they are safe, comfortable and happy at a very delicate time in their lives. In this situation, unfortunately it was found that this was not the case for some hospitals. Every opportunity to open up the discussion on why this happened must be taken. People might be found guilty of wrongdoing. We cannot have reports out there but at the same time not have anything acted on because I know the HIQA standards were not met in many of the hospitals. We will support this amendment going forward.

See this speech in context