Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There were 130 people on trolleys in UHL on Monday. Other Deputies have mentioned UHL this evening but I have been mentioning it for 12 months. I was told to stop talking about the CEO and the management.

I was in the hospital when I got a knock-out during the year. I waited in the waiting room for 16 hours. I did not look for preferential treatment. The Minister said the money is like a runaway train. The money is going out of all proportion. I wonder where the money is going. Is it all going to the top and to the higher management? It is definitely not going to the nurses or to home helps. It is going on the top tier. There is no accountability in the HSE. Where else is the money going? It is going on legal bills. Mistakes were made in hospitals and they are trying to cover them up. Check out the legal fees, year on year. They are on the rise. Rather than admitting and fixing mistakes, they decide to take them through the courts for years, putting families through stress. That is where the money is going. It is not going into the training of new nurses or doctors. There is a freeze on home help. There are people working in the health service on a voluntary basis. The section 39 workers are looking for pay parity. Pay parity would stop the HSE from poaching staff from other organisations who train them for six months and from bringing them into its system. If there was pay parity, there would be no poaching within the HSE.

I spoke about being in UHL. When I got to where I had to get to, I could not fault anyone in the hospital or the care I got. However, getting from accident and emergency to where I needed to get to was a huge problem. It is not safe for the people who have to work in it because of the overcrowding. It is not good for their mental health. They feel they are broken when they come out. They try their hardest and when they come out they feel like they are going back in again and have made no difference. The money is going to the top tier and not into the basic health system where it needs to be.

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