Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I know the Minister of State will probably not take his full ten minutes on that basis.

When the Minister for Health and Children accepted the poisoned chalice of her ministry, she did so in the knowledge that it was not going to be an easy job. It was going to be a very tough job. I admire her for doing so and the help she has in her two junior Ministers.

My point concerns value for money, which has been discussed by Senator Jim Walsh. We are not doing a very good job in respect of it. Hospitals should be for medical care, but a very large amount of the cost goes on keeping people in hospital when they do not need to be there.

I was chairman of Hume Street Hospital and sat on the board for many years. One of the things we did there was recognise that the vast majority of those who wanted help perhaps only needed one visit from a doctor of between one hour and ten minutes but had to stay at the hospital for the full week until we made it a day care centre. We copied something that was being done in the US and which seemed much more efficient. People could go to work in the morning, come into the hospital, have their treatment and go back to work. Very often, the treatment received involved dermatology or something like that. Before that, they had to stay in hospital for the full week even though they only saw the doctor once during the week. It did not make sense.

We have not done nearly enough in respect of the use of the hospital as somewhere where people stay when they only need medical treatment for a very short time. For example, I know a man in the US who had to go into hospital for an operation and stayed in the hotel right beside the hospital. He went over to the hospital for his operation and when he was not well after it, he was driven back to the hotel. He stayed in the hotel near the hospital. It was not a very serious operation, but it was something he had to undergo. It appeared that the cost was dramatically lower than the cost of running hospitals here.

I should not mention names, but I heard Noel Smyth on "The Marian Finucane Show" on the radio the other day. I was very impressed by what he talked about and the example he used of people of high value who very often take on philanthropic work in the US where charitable giving to such establishments as universities or hospitals is quite commonplace. We have not opened the door to that sort of thing in Ireland. There is money available to invest, not for a return or in capital, but because one wants to do good. There are people who want to do this and perhaps our legislation and tax laws are not making that attractive enough.

On the Order of Business today I raised a point on figures published in Great Britain concerning the huge cost to the National Health Service as a result of doctors prescribing highly expensive branded drugs when generic drugs are available. We have a long way to go in that area. Doctors prescribe drugs because they hear the names of them and I am told that sometimes these drugs are seven times more expensive than generic drugs. Let us make sure we are doing the right thing in buying those drugs at a much more sensible price.