Alan Kelly (Labour)

I wish to raise the matter of the need for the Minister for Health and Children to outline if the Government is fully committed to providing funding for the operation of the CT scanner that has been lying idle in Nenagh General Hospital for almost a year and to provide an indicative date for the commencement of its use.

This is one of the biggest farces of the HSE, and all involved in politics in my part of the country accept it is a farce. The CT scanner in Nenagh hospital was announced with great fanfare in April 2006 by two of the Minister of State's colleagues, including the current Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Máire Hoctor. This new scanner would mean approximately 500 patients would not have to be ferried to Limerick for scans. It is now March 2008 and the CT scanner is still sitting in its own unit in Nenagh hospital with the plastic on it. It has never been used.

The work on the CT unit was completed in June 2007, but there has been no movement since. I visited the hospital with my party leader Deputy Eamon Gilmore. The issue, however, is such an embarrassment to the HSE that it would not permit us to view the new unit, despite the fact we had journalists and photographers with us. We were barred from seeing the new CT scanner in case we photographed. I pointed out that I could download a similar photograph from the Internet and use it, but that made no difference. The CT scanner is an embarrassment to the hospital.

This issue has a wider impact than the matter of whether scans are provided in the hospital. It has a significant impact on the service being provided by the ambulance service, a matter I have raised in the House previously. The ambulance service is stretched for a number of reasons. It is now down to one stretcher and capacity is halved. The same ambulance service, which can operate only one ambulance in the evening, ferries people in and out to Limerick. If there is an emergency on the N7 or nearby, the ambulance may be doing the job of ferrying people to Limerick for scans, despite the fact there is a scanner lying idle in the hospital to which the ambulance is attached. This is ridiculous.

I understand from the HSE that when the manager of Nenagh hospital applied to get eleven people to run the unit, he was told Bantry hospital could do it with 6.5 people. I understand the hospital in Ennis got approval through the National Hospitals Office for 6.5 people to run a scanner, despite the fact it does not have one. Nenagh got no approval, although it does have a scanner. I pointed out this several times previously.

The budget for Nenagh hospital is approximately €22 million for 2008, an increase of approximately €75,000. Medical inflation runs at 10% and with the way general inflation is going this is an effective drop in the budget of 12%.