Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cullinane and Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. I echo the disappointment that was expressed. It is understandable that a Minister might be unavailable, perhaps unavoidably so, but there are also two junior Ministers at the Department of Health. It would be terrible to think there is a degree of lethargy from the Government in dealing with waiting lists across multiple areas of health but it is difficult to come to any other conclusion in light of the absence of any of the Ministers to respond to the motion.

As we can see the bright sky through the glass roof of the Chamber this evening, we know we are in the middle of summer. That is usually a time when pressure on emergency departments will have eased but we are now living through a perpetual trolley crisis. As the motion states, there have been, on average, 550 patients on trolleys every day this month. That is incredible. In previous winters, going over 500 was almost unthinkable. Now, it is the norm.

In her statement today on behalf of the Minister, the Chief Whip placed much emphasis on capital investment for extra beds and buildings. We need more capacity, including elective hospitals and in nursing homes and primary care, but we will also need staff to work in all those buildings that are yet to be developed and built. Staff are needed to work in the healthcare settings that are currently in use. We know from speaking with the healthcare unions that there is a recruitment and retention crisis. I attended the INMO conference a couple of weeks ago and heard Bernard Gloster, the relatively new CEO of the HSE, speak on the need to improve recruitment and retention. Those were good words but they need to be backed up with action. He also stated that the days of having a winter plan are over; it is now a year-round plan. Those were also welcome words but we need to see them backed up. That is from where the motivation behind the motion comes.

Having spoken to members of the INMO at the conference, as well as in my constituency and through my role as spokesperson, it is clear their conditions of work are very difficult, the pay is not meeting the cost of living and the domino effect of the housing crisis is having a real impact on the retention of current healthcare staff. We have spoken at length on the housing crisis and will continue to do so. I have been speaking to CEOs of hospitals that are looking at their land banks to develop accommodation facilities for their existing workers and to attract in workers from overseas. That is not a sustainable accommodation model for healthcare workers. It is not how front-line workers should be accommodated. They should be paid at a level that allows them to live in a society where they can afford their own home and secure accommodation, but that is not happening. According to the INMO, 59% of young nurses who are leaving to go abroad for better pay and conditions also cite living standards, as well as affordability and availability of housing This is having a direct impact on healthcare settings and the ability to deliver safe staffing. The motion calls on the Government to underpin mandatory safe staffing levels in hospitals through legislation.

I wish to speak to elements of safe staffing, particularly in the context of assaults and an inequity in that regard. We know that many front-line healthcare workers have to put up with physical, verbal and sexual assaults in the workplace. It is intolerable. The HSE serious physical assault scheme, however, has an inequity within it. Members of certain grades who are the victim of an assault are entitled to six months on full pay and can apply for two further extensions up to 12 months. Other front-line workers in the support grades, such as healthcare assistants, porters, receptionists and security guards, do not get that, however. At best, they might get three months and then go onto regular sick pay or no pay, even if they are unfit to return to work. This has to stop. It is a fundamental element of safe staffing. Two workers who are victims of the same assault may not be entitled to the same benefits through the serious physical assault scheme. The Labour Party has raised this issue on several occasions. My colleague, Senator Hoey, raised it in a motion she tabled in the Seanad at the start of April. It is a matter we will continue to raise at every opportunity.

Also in the context of support grades, among the unseen heroes of the healthcare service are medical scientists and laboratory workers. It is one year since medical scientists went out on strike for the first time in their 60-year history. To date, the Department of Health and the HSE have addressed none of the critical issues that drove them to withdraw their labour for the first time in their long history. A report confirmed calls from medical scientists and their union last year but we have seen nothing. In good faith, medical scientists agreed to suspend their industrial action upon completion of an independent report that reconfirmed the validity of their claim. The report was published in January but nothing has happened since. Kevin O'Boyle, chair of the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association, MLSA, stated:

...laboratory services are crumbling. Poor pay and conditions have left laboratories unable to recruit staff, with 13% of Medical Scientist positions currently vacant against a backdrop of spiralling demand and constant pressure.

Staff are more demoralised than ever.

We do not need to go too far back in our history to see the work done by our medical scientists during Covid with all the diagnoses they did. When we see these advertisements outside our hospitals attracting nurses and other medical workers to come and work in Australia, Canada or Dubai, it is also a call to medical scientists and lab workers who are finding work in those countries and who are also able to transfer quite easily to more lucrative roles in the private sector in the medical science sector of our economy. We want to keep these workers. They want to work in public health. They want to work in our hospitals and being in the engine room of diagnosis and care, but they are not getting the support they need. They have been ignored and it is one year on since they took that action.

We are still massively under resourced in the provision of primary care throughout the country. We need top-quality facilities and we need primary care centres. For a number of years now, and especially since I was elected to the Dáil, I have been banging on about the lack of a primary care centre in a town the size of Swords, which is 60,000 people. Swords is the largest town in Ireland that does not have a primary care centre. We need proper buildings for the community disability network teams, which we will discuss tomorrow in the Labour Party motion on disability supports. They cannot continue to operate in health centres that were designed and built for populations of around 20,000 people, not towns of 60,000 and which are projected to grow to more than 100,000. Our primary care centre can no longer be Beaumont Hospital. We can see the number of cancellations of treatments at Beaumont Hospital. We are aware of the pressure Beaumont Hospital is under in the northside of our city. Fingal is the fastest growing and youngest county in Ireland. We need the resources to ease the pressure on Beaumont Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

I will make one last comment on front-line workers. They still have not received the pandemic bonus payment. We are sick of asking about this through parliamentary questions and getting the same response that the KOSI Corporation is looking after all of the workers. It is not. There are still front-line workers who are being left behind. We speak about the demoralising effect of working in healthcare services and having long waiting lists throughout our healthcare services. The pandemic bonus payment is not key to it but it is perhaps symbolic of those who are forgotten, left behind and feel totally under appreciated by the HSE, the Department of Health and this Government.

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