Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler, is in the Chamber to take this motion. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward.

The issues around general practice and primary care are obvious to anyone who is a public representative. The burden on GPs is so enormous that we need an all-encompassing contract for them whereby they would be provided with all the services they need. The stop-start, haphazard primary care roll-out needs to be dramatically changed as well, particularly in the context of the impact this has had on the overspend relating to the new national children's hospital.

The Minister of State will have no doubt about what I am going to talk about. I am going to talk about Nenagh community nursing home. I want the Minister of State to listen because I doubt I could be any more passionate about a particular matter. This issue is very close to my heart. I have been working on it for years. Many of my family members spent their final days in St. Conlon's Community Nursing Unit in Nenagh. There was major upset the weekend before last about the delay relating to the new unit. This is the new unit we got built, and for which I had sought funding in 2015. This is the unit for which we helped to get planning permission in 2019 beside the hospital. This is the state-of-the-art unit on which we spent €23 million and which I campaigned to have opened. I campaigned to get the unit opened in order that the people of Nenagh and surround areas would have access to this 50-bed unit.

Almost 14 years ago, HIQA stated that the building in which St. Conlon's is located was not fit for purpose. There are fantastic staff and a fantastic manager, Elaine Flynn, there, but the building is not fit for purpose. They were excited about moving to the new unit. The residents and their families in particular were excited about moving. Just under two weeks ago, we had a situation whereby, on social media, Deputy Lowry announced what was going on and Deputy Cahill indicated that he had gone to the Minister and asked for him to intervene. I find that incredible. This is how the residents, the staff, the public and I found out about what is happening. It cannot be allowed to happen.

The Minister of State has responsibility for older people. I admired her when she spoke up on the issue of the fair deal, and I believe she was right. I know all about dementia and its impact on people. I know all about the decision-making that is necessary and the consequential issues that can arise. I want the Minister of State to do something that I believe she can do. I hope she will see sense. Some €23 million of taxpayers' money has been spent on this project. We all know that what is going on at University Hospital Limerick is a disaster. I have all the figures in that regard. I have been on about this for more than a decade. Reconfiguration never happened.

On the Thursday before last, Bernard Gloster stated that the HSE was going to do three things, namely: have medical assessment units open at St. John's in Ennis and in Nenagh for 24 hours, which is a brilliant idea if they can get the staff; have profiling at the point of entry to the accident and emergency department in University Hospital Limerick to discover why people had or had not gone to their GPs - a heat-mapping measure for which I have been calling for years; and reprofiling of the 96 beds versus the Nightingale wards to create more beds. I agree 100% with all three of those measures. We then have this bombshell about a delay of this community nursing home for 50 people that is so badly needed. At all clinics every Friday in Nenagh, I have people crying out for nursing home care. The Minister of State will be aware that patients in public nursing homes are often such high-dependency cases that private nursing homes will not bloody well take them. These are the people who are being let down. There are in hospital tonight in the mid-west and they need to get into this unit. We were told at the health forum that the unit would be opened this month. These people cannot get into private nursing homes because they are too high dependency. This is not acceptable.

We got screwed in 2009 when our coronary care unit, intensive care unit and accident and emergency department in Nenagh were taken away. Reconfiguration was going to happen, but it never happened. We are not going to get screwed a second time. We are not going to allow the people of Nenagh and surrounding areas in north Tipperary to get screwed again. We are not going to allow our elderly people to be treated like this. The people of Nenagh will not tolerate this. The people of north Tipperary will not tolerate it. Two wrongs do not make a right. It is shameful that the staff, local management, the management at HSE level and HR management in the area knew nothing about this. They knew zilch. This decision was made by a very small number of people, or maybe only one person. It is wrong, and it cannot be allowed to happen.

The unions and staff were not consulted. The Employees (Provision of Information and Consultation) Act was not adhered to. That is completely wrong because the Act has to be adhered to. Those involved met with the unions yesterday. They came back and said they were doing the same thing. The unions will now ballot for industrial action. Do we really want industrial action at St. Conlon's home? Such action would have a knock-on effect on Nenagh Hospital, on the ambulance service and on a range of other things because SIPTU, the INMO, Fórsa and, possibly, other unions would be involved. Is this the way to start regionality? Is this the way to treat elderly people by putting fear out there? There are 20 residents in the unit and 30 more to go in. If the latter happens, there would be 50 people in this state-of-the-art unit. We were thinking about what we were going to use St. Conlon's for in the future, either for the provision of mental health services or other services. We never dreamt that anyone would come up with this preposterous and disgraceful decision. What is proposed cannot happen. The unions will not allow it to happen, including the staff in Nenagh Hospital, who, along with the ambulance drivers and those who perform diagnostics, will show solidarity with those in St. Conlon's.

The HSE will all be dependent on the people to whom I refer in order to make this sub-acute unit to work. What is a sub-acute unit anyway? This unit was built as a nursing home. It is either an acute unit or a nursing home. It cannot be both. A great deal of money would have to be spent if it were to be converted into a sub-acute unit.

We do not need to end up in this situation. The reason the unions will automatically oppose this wholeheartedly is because the people of Nenagh do not deserve to be treated like this. The workers deserve to be in this unit and so do the residents and future residents. Not only is it being taken off the elderly in Nenagh but it is also going to be privatised. Public jobs are being taken and privatised and everybody is expected to dance to the tune and accept that it will only be for a year. It is now the end of March 2024. It is said that it will be brought back to being a nursing unit in 2025, but by the time all of the works are done, even if people did co-operate, it would be a number of months away. This will not happen. Once this is gone it is gone. The crisis in UHL will not be solved overnight with the best will in the world. It will be gone.

What will happen to the residents in St. Conlon's? Will they ever see this new unit? Some of them will never see it. Will the man I am thinking about in UHL or the woman I am thinking about in Nenagh Hospital ever see it? No, they will not. Where are they going to go? The Minister of State has responsibility for the elderly. Where are they going to go? Among all the nursing homes in north Tipperary and further afield up as far as Offaly and into Limerick, Clare and Galway, I beg, borrow and steal to try to find places for people who are loved ones. I know what this is like. I have gone through it with my wider family.

I also know what it is to look after elderly people. My parents are 84 and 85. My mother was 84 the other day. I love her more than anything in the world. We have to look after these people. The people of the area deserve this unit. It was built for them. It was built to future-proof because HIQA said the old unit could not continue. It worries me that people in the HSE and in government would think it is okay to do this to the elderly. We have just had a referendum on care but it is okay to do this to the elderly. It is damn well not okay. I will oppose it with all my might and for passionate reasons, not for political reasons. I know it is damn wrong. Everyone in the HSE up to a certain level does not want this and they, too, know it is damn wrong. The people of Tipperary will not put up with this.

I ask the Minister of State to please intervene with the HSE. Another meeting will take place tomorrow between the new regional manager and her team and the senior union officials. I know the senior union officials because I am from the Labour Party and I talk to them. We all know they will not accept privatisation. We all know they will not accept a situation where this is not an elderly care unit. Will the Minister of State please intervene with the HSE and say, for God's sake, this is not the way to start, this is not the way regionalisation should work, this is not the way to communicate and, most of all, this is not the way to treat workers who go way above and beyond what is necessary to look after these people. It is certainly not the way to treat the residents of St. Conlon's home, who have been looking forward to going into this new community nursing home. It is certainly not the way to treat future residents who need it and will need it in the coming years. I am at the stage of begging the Minister of State to intervene. I know she has it in her to help us. Please do so. Otherwise, this will end up in a scenario where people will be on the streets. There will be a situation with industrial action and we do not want to start this. It should not be the way we treat the elderly.

See this speech in context