Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Universal healthcare is a healthcare system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to healthcare. That is currently a pipe dream in this country, unfortunately. Our health system is broken, and I do not know what it is going to take to fix it. How are we getting the most basic things like providing our citizens with a decent level of healthcare so wrong? We currently have a health system in which our most vulnerable children and adults with disabilities are waiting years for the most basic of therapies and early interventions. Speech and language, occupational therapy and psychology appointments within the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, are practically non-existent, with hundreds of children in south Tipperary waiting to be seen. Therapists are fleeing the service, which makes it worse. Waiting lists for primary care appointments are no better.

In recent weeks, I have brought serious issues regarding the governance of the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Tipperary to the attention of the Minister of State and head of services. These are very concerning with regard to the management and practices within the organisation. The concerns that have been brought to my attention are extremely worrying, and the most disappointing thing about all this is that our young adults are going through a very difficult time in their lives with mental health difficulties. They are the ones who are losing out, and there does not seem to be any rush to fix the problem, which is desperate. Is uafásach an rud é sin. Our children are waiting five years for orthodontic appointments. Now, the HSE is actively encouraging patients to bring their children to the North for treatment under the cross-border directive.

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We are sending our pensioners to Belfast for a 15-minute cataract operation because we cannot do them for years, while people waiting for knee, hip or other such appointments have a choice between years of pain and suffering or driving to the North. My friend, a lady of 83, Katie Peters, is travelling tomorrow to get a hip operation. I wish her well. She is frightfully nervous. She is a kind, gentle woman, like a second mother to me. She is so nervous about the travel and the distance involved. Thankfully we can get this service, but it should not have to happen, but it is happening all the time. My colleagues, Deputies Collins and Healy-Rae, and others, send people all the time to Kingsbridge hospital in Belfast and elsewhere for a plethora of different reasons. I thank them because they often pick up patients in Cahir, Mitchelstown and indeed Cashel for me, to bring them up. They come back and have praise of what is done there. The farce of it is that people from Northern Ireland are coming here under the same scheme to get it done here. How could a system be so disjointed that it could carry on that kind of calamitous route, with absolutely no accountability?

As I said during the week, I have been in St. Vincent's public hospital recently. I got the best of care. I want to acknowledge that there are many good things. I went in the front door and came out nearly a week later. I was back several times for follow-up appointments. It was professional and streamlined, with very little waiting time. How can it be so chaotic in other areas? I also acknowledge that I attended the Mater too, with Professor David Keegan. I was with him this day week ago. He and his colleagues have a great vision - vision is not a pun but it is very important - of how we can make things better here for eye treatments and cataract operations. We looked at the Sligo model, which was a success. He told me last week that he is half half-tempted to give up because he is meeting resistance, blockages and roadblocks that he had never anticipated. He is a professional surgeon of high renown and he and his colleagues want to do their job. They should not have to lobby and come in for meetings with the HSE to get the dynamic services that they want to provide. They are showing a pathway but there is too much red tape and too many fiefdoms, a word which I use again, within the HSE and Department of Health. People are minding their own patch and not serving the greater good, as all public servants should be.

We badly need a good, strong Minister, which we do not have, to take on this system and give it a good shake-up and make it work for our people. It is getting worse rather than better. I regularly hear the Leas-Cheann Comhairle talking about the situation in Galway and the issues there. TDs from all over the country are like broken records talking about it. Limerick beats Banagher. Limerick is unbelievable, with the blackguarding going on with the public. As I said, we cannot do 15-minute cataract operations here. We cannot get appointments with our GPs for up to two weeks. People cannot even get a GP to take on new patients. That is happening all over Tipperary and the country. Our Caredoc services go unanswered as they cannot cope with the demand, while our hospitals tell people to stay away and attend their doctors.

I regularly hear that on Tipp FM about St. Joseph's hospital in Clonmel. They want to change the name to Tipperary University Hospital, having changed it twice already, from South Tipperary General Hospital. We rushed to change the name and do fol-dol and things like that. Changing the name does not make any services better. The money that has been wasted in changing names to South Tipperary General Hospital and now University Hospital Tipperary is significant. People might not think it, but every piece of paper and every item has to be changed. Changing the name and sticking the university tag on it does not say everything. We have a good service in Clonmel, with Professor Peter Murchan and his team of consultants, as well as Professor Paul O'Regan, when he was there, and many others. We had a 30-bed extension that we fought for. We now have St. Michael's, which was robbed from us by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and left abandoned for the past ten years, but now it is finally a step-down unit from St. Joseph's hospital, also in Clonmel, which I will keep calling the hospital where all my children were born, not the fancy university names.

Where are people to go when they have no option but the emergency department? They are left for hours and days, in some cases on a trolley. Most horrific of all, patients have been found dead hours after their passing in one of the hospitals. The Minister of State knows where I am talking about in Limerick, which serves my constituency. Other young lives have been lost in the most shocking incidents. How can we stand over or condone that? If a war was going on or something, we could say that could happen, but in a so-called civilised, democratic country, it is not acceptable. Our elderly, while approved for home help, cannot get any because there is no one to do the work. The HSE is happy to approve the hours, happy in the knowledge that it has ticked the box, yet the elderly are living at home, alone, and have no services. Our nursing homes are underfunded so much that many our choosing to care for loved ones at home. Where are our elderly patients going to get care? I ask that question in all honesty. It is not fair to have them, in their twilight years, worrying and suffering. The battle that is going on in Limerick at the moment is despicable. I could go on about this but unfortunately do not have enough time to talk about the failures of our health system.

Irish citizens are currently not assured of access to healthcare, at least not in a timely fashion or in a manner that represents the dignity and value of citizens of this country. We are failing them. Unless there is radical change within our health services, we will continue to fail them.

Going back to University Hospital Limerick, it is appalling. The closure of Nenagh, St. John's and indeed Ennis emergency departments was predicated on the fact that we would have a certain number of beds in Limerick. We never got those beds in Limerick, so there will be bedlam there. When that happened, we asked to reopen Nenagh, St. John's and Ennis, but to no avail. We have seen appalling mismanagement in UHL. I do not get too many cases because I am farthest away from it, but it is just shocking. Councillor Séamie Morris and others are doing Trojan work, as are Dr. Conor Reidy and his team, to try to highlight this issue. Then someone decided to have HIQA force St. Conlon's to close down the home in Nenagh for elderly care and respite because of standards. A new St. Conlon's has been built, at a cost of €50 million. It is state-of-the-art. The staff, patients and families were looking forward to and ready to move on. The powers that be have said that they are going to use it as a step-down for UHL.

HIQA condemned the St. Conlon's building but, hey presto, now a senior official in the HSE, whose name I called out here last week, said not to mind HIQA, because it will do what the HSE tells it. What confidence does that give anyone in a nursing home that is supposed to be governed by HIQA? None whatsoever, when a HSE official could say not to mind HIQA because it will do what the HSE tells it. The HSE will now allow patients to stay in an unsafe building. It was unsafe three years ago and is currently unsafe. Now they will be left again because senior officials have decided that they can do it. What is the point in having an office for HIQA, with a CEO and a whole plethora of people, when we have a brass plate on the window that states they are useless, toothless and fruitless and can be cast aside by senior health officials? It is not acceptable.

Mo fhocal scoir, it is a continual shame that the Government would close St. Brigid's in Carrick-on-Suir so unceremoniously. Three hospital suites were provided for by the people. The Government has continued not to listen to the people, meet the people or engage with the people. They are good people, staff and management. The loved ones of many people who died there were also born there. There have been generations of people. It is a lovely district hospital. It was seconded for Covid and never used, then closed down. It was good enough to be used for Covid, yet the Government decided it was not good enough. We have got no answers. The hospital action committee will come up to the Joint Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen. We have no answers and no accountability whatsoever. There is no accountability from the Minister of State, who took the decision to close it, or phoned me to tell me that she was closing it. It was in her own backyard and I could not believe it. People came in from Portlaw in that part of Waterford, where the Minister of State is from, and south Kilkenny and Tipperary. The beds have not been replaced. Worse than that, the funding that people collected in donation boxes at wakes to support the hospice, fundraisers and many other areas has not been returned to the committee or the people. Shame on you.

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