Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I also call for a debate on what the HSE is doing in regard to nursing home charges. It is basically saying that if one requires public nursing home care but does not manage to fulfil the criteria to qualify for the fair deal scheme, one could end up paying up to €3,000 per week to stay in a public nursing home. That amounts, basically, to bringing in a form of health apartheid, which is as bad as anything that existed prior to the fair deal scheme coming into play. The budget for the fair deal scheme will not allow for all patients to get access to public nursing homes. I call for an urgent debate on this and for all the facts and figures to be supplied by the HSE rather than it making them up as it goes along.

I request that the Minster for Health and Children comes to the House to debate the issue of medical doctors in our hospitals. We heard today that there was a doctor struck off by the Medical Council because he more or less made up his curriculum vitae and was working as a surgeon doctor in a hospital in this country. From my experience and from talking to others, we have highly trained consultants in this country but a question mark hangs over the experience and competence of many of the junior doctors working in hospitals across this country. It is a matter that is being ignored. It is not being dealt with by the medical colleges or the Department of Health and Children, and certainly not by the Minister for Health and Children. I ask that there be an urgent and proper debate on this issue because it is having a detrimental effect on patient care in many hospitals.