Alan Kelly (Labour)

With medical inflation included, the budget is effectively reduced by 12.5%. This means Nenagh hospital was under funded for this year, but it has always spent over the allocated funding. The manager has been told he must fund the CT scanner and the people to operate it from current funds. That is impossible for him. He already has approximately 35 people employed who, according to the HSE, should not be employed. How then is he meant to provide for the scanner?

The hospital already suffers from the fact that the elderly care unit was closed over Christmas. A team work report is due and it will consider the role of the hospital. Many of us are worried that report will have an impact on accident and emergency services and on the clinical area. The hospital has already closed many of its wards and now provides just 75 beds.

We have been told that in order to run the CT scanner the hospital needs specialist radiography staff and a clinical nurse specialist. I understand that. However, the response to the situation from the HSE is laughable. It does not come back with a response to queries for days. When it does come back with an answer, it is so generic it is useless. The hospital manager provides as much up-to-date information as he can at his forums, which I attend but which are not usually attended by the Minister of State with responsibility for the elderly, Deputy Hoctor. However, information from the manager is not the issue. The problem is we cannot get an answer from the HSE as to when it will put in use this badly needed scanner that is sitting idle. Its operation would also have a dramatic impact on the ambulance service in the area.

The HSE has stated that all options are being explored at present in order to commence this diagnostic service at the earliest possible date. That is complete and utter waffle. It should provide an indicative date. It should give us a date for which the hospital manager can budget. Perhaps the date could be provided before the publication of the team work report relating to Nenagh hospital and other small hospitals which is due in April. It is an indication of the lack of joined-up thinking if it is provided later.

The situation is an embarrassment for the HSE, the Government and local government representatives in the area, Deputies Hoctor and Lowry. I look forward to a response.We need to know when it will be opened and we need an indicative date. We need to know if the hospital will get the funding. A sum of €22 million to run that hospital simply will not work. I beg the Minister of State not to begin his response by saying that this is a matter for the HSE.