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

The budget and the huge underfunding in the HSE affects us all in every constituency around the country. The previous speaker mentioned that all of us are constituency Deputies. We all work with communities that are struggling, trying to survive and trying to manage. The head of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, recently made it plain that they simply cannot be expected to deliver an effective and efficient service on the funding that is in place at present. Across the western seaboard, particularly in the north west and Sligo hospital, we have massive waiting times for people to get operations or to be seen. We also have continued overcrowding in the hospital services there. That is the same across the whole country.

The cap on staffing is one of the serious issues that is affecting people everywhere. My daughter is doing nursing at the moment and like many of her colleagues, they work with an agency at the weekends. Friends of hers do the same. A friend from Limerick who is in college with her in Sligo worked in a hospital in Limerick recently. She was there on a 12-hour shift and she was the only nurse. There was no senior nurse with her, and she was looking after 16 patients. That is the kind of situation she was in. She said to the others that she would not be able to take those people out of bed. They said, "That is fine; leave them in the bed." That is the kind of health service we are going to have if we do not put the resources in place and remove these ridiculous caps and ensure we have services in place for people.

There is a specific issue regarding ambulance services that I want to raise. I received an email in respect of my own area in County Leitrim, which stated:

I feel I must highlight to you the absolute abandonment of ambulance services in the area of Carrick-on-Shannon in recent times. Carrick-on-Shannon base is our closest resource and unfortunately for the entire of south Leitrim, one ambulance per shift is allocated to work. I must put this in context. This one ambulance is consistently being utilised by the Cavan-Monaghan and Longford-Mullingar area as well as our own south Leitrim area. Basically at any time during a 12-hour shift, this ambulance is certainly not in Carrick-on-Shannon or surrounds but unfortunately this has become the norm. This is a lack of resource and, to be honest, a lack of uptake in overtime for staff due to burnout and morale being at an all-time low.

He goes into detail in regard to a particular case, which I will not raise. He then states that Carrick-on-Shannon needs another ambulance per shift, if not two, and needs to have a proper, functioning ambulance base to accommodate ambulances to ensure that we have a proper service. There have been tragic road traffic accidents in recent times. An ambulance is called and it takes anything from half an hour to three quarters of an hour, and sometimes up to an hour, for that ambulance to arrive. It is because of this policy of dynamic deployment. The ambulance that is supposed to be in a particular area could be practically anywhere in the country. That is what happens. Then the crew is told they have to go over to Mayo or up to Donegal. When they are three quarters of the way there, they are told it is all right, someone else is covering that, and they are sent back again. This thing is going on all over the country in every constituency. Every Deputy or Senator the Minister talks to in here will tell him the same stories of staff who work in the ambulance services being absolutely at their wits' end because of what is going on.

I also want to raise home help services and resources. There are loads of people in my constituency trying to get home help services but who cannot get them. Hours are being cut and the staff are being pushed and squeezed all the time. They are told they can get a person up and give them a shower but not to dare bring them in a few sods of turf to put on the fire - do not dare organise anything for them, things that they need. It is called home help for a reason. They absolutely need.

See this speech in context