Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government, under Sláintecare, sets out a pathway for expanded access to healthcare in keeping with the vision of universal healthcare. We need to get to a point where we truly have healthcare delivered free at the point of delivery. Three principles should underpin all of our approaches to healthcare - affordability, accessibility and accountability. With regard to affordability, all of us have received great care in the public system but we also know about the issues with costs. We welcome this Bill in the sense that it will reduce some costs but we can go further to help ease the financial burden already being experienced by many families. For example, the cost of parking in hospitals was debated last week, as well as additional costs for families such as accommodation and childcare while their child is in hospital. While the biggest ever investment package allocated to health demonstrates the Government’s commitment to deliver universal healthcare, how are we to achieve the Sláintecare commitments with few or no staff?

On accessibility, I am dealing with issues in my constituency clinics every week relating to people who are unable to access health services. Just last week I spoke to a young man who has been waiting for a clinic appointment for two years, with letter after letter explaining that the clinic is postponed. The problem is chronic.

Within the budget, we committed to increasing access to GP care without charge for more than half of the population. This is an important healthcare measure that removes a prohibitive cost barrier to accessing GP care. However, we know the challenges faced by patients in accessing healthcare at every level, including long waiting lists and long waiting times in accident and emergency departments.

We will never deliver or realise universal free GP care unless we increase capacity and have a plan to increase training places. Healthcare workers are no longer attracted to what the HSE has become, so we are short of staff. The Minister could also address the consistent loss of rural GPs by expanding primary care. It is no wonder that people must go to accident and emergency departments when they cannot get a GP or they are not eligible to attend the local injury unit, such as the Louth County Hospital. What is the point in having a medical card if there is no access?

Lastly, I will touch on accountability. The Sláintecare progress is painfully slow with complex structural and legal barriers, but the fundamental problem with our health service is that it is inequitable because it denies care. Parents are forced to borrow money to get an assessment of needs done privately. By allowing a situation like that to continue, it drives behaviour, for both patients and medical staff who are incentivised to set up in private practice. The number one responsibility is to make healthcare affordable and ensure adequate supply. We need to recruit staff. The Minister has my full support with this amendment if he presses ahead with the implementation of the Sláintecare contracts and introduces salaried GPs or different arrangements in respect of the employment for required roles. My colleague Deputy Seán Canney will come in soon and when he arrives I will stop.

A person's health is their wealth. The demand for doctors is unreal. The amount of people who are telling my constituency office that when they ring up GPs they are being told that it could be two or three weeks. This is not acceptable. These people are sick and badly need a bit of help and they end up in emergency departments. I will be honest and say that the Louth County Hospital out-of-hours service provided by the doctors there is second to none. I was up there two weeks ago and I believe there were 25 people waiting to see the doctors. If that service was not available, there would be something seriously wrong.

The Minister is going to have to sort out the situation around GP care and we are going to have to sort out the situation with medical cards. This Government has promised to issue medical cards to a lot of young children. Families are suffering and the cost of living is going very high. I am aware that the Minister is trying hard and his name is popping up a lot at the moment. We do want to support the Minister, but there is a serious situation with GPs. In my area we have the Louth County Hospital. Maybe people in an emergency could call there during the day to see a doctor and so on, with no cost or whatever it is. A person's health is their wealth. I thank the Minister for listening.

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