Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I am concerned about the way health services are delivered in County Wexford. This ties in with the issues raised on the Adjournment by the two previous speakers.

The general manager of St. Vincent's University Hospital wrote to general practitioners in County Wexford to state the hospital was no longer in a position to see public patients from the county. That means patients who require tertiary services, namely, highly specialised services such as plastic surgery, will no longer be seen in St. Vincent's University Hospital. Instead of having to travel for between 50 minutes and one hour to St. Vincent's University Hospital, they will now have to travel three and a half hours to Cork University Hospital. There is no direct train or bus service to that hospital. This shows the ridiculousness of the thinking of the Health Service Executive, that patients living within one hour of a hospital must now travel three and a half hours to fulfil the administrative needs of the executive.

A number of patients from north County Wexford also attend St. Vincent's University Hospital for specialised regional services such as ear, nose and throat services. They have now been told they must travel to Waterford. When I initially heard the news, I asked GPs about their concerns. They said the waiting time was approximately six to nine months for a public ear, nose and throat outpatient's appointment in St. Vincent's University Hospital, but one had to wait for up to two years for an appointment in Waterford Regional Hospital.

The Minister of State has indicated the Minister for Health and Children is in favour of the effective and efficient delivery of health care services. One thing she is not interested in, however, is equality in the delivery of such services. When I made further inquiries, I found out that one had to wait for approximately nine months for an orthopaedic outpatient's appointment in St. Vincent's University Hospital, while one had to wait four years for an appointment in Waterford Regional Hospital. One sometimes has to wait weeks but normally less than three months for a scope procedure, used to diagnose stomach or bowel cancer, in St. Vincent's University Hospital if a doctor contacts the consultant specialist there. In Waterford Regional Hospital and Wexford General Hospital one has to wait far longer because the services are completely under-resourced in both hospitals.

I would like to get a straight answer to my questions from the Minister of State. If Waterford Regional Hospital is not functioning, as is the case - it does not even compare to St. Vincent's University Hospital - is it because the resources provided for it are insufficient or is it because there is incompetent management? I want these questions answered because they are issues the people in the south east want to have addressed. I refer to the concerns expressed by my two colleagues, that in Waterford one should only have a heart attack three days a week between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., whereas one can have one at any time of the day in Dublin. People in Wexford want to know if they have a substandard regional hospital in comparison to people living in Dublin in which there are five major hospitals and four general hospitals serving a population of approximately 1.4 million. Given that hospitals in Dublin are writing to general practitioners in County Wexford to state they will no longer see patients with an address in County Wexford, I wish to know what the Minister is going to do to improve services rapidly in Waterford Regional Hospital and Wexford General Hospital because we are capable of doing much of the work required ourselves if given the resources.

The Minister of State referred to the catheterisation laboratory and the rapid access diagnostic clinic for prostate cancer in Waterford Regional Hospital. However, there are no fully functioning urologists in Waterford Regional Hospital. There was no urologist in the hospital up to a few months ago and in its wisdom the Health Service Executive then took on three. However, it has not allocated any resources to provide the urology services available in St. Vincent's University Hospital.

There is marked apartheid in the delivery of care services in the capital and 100 miles down the road in County Wexford. Much of this is being driven by the nonsensical administrative ideas outlined by members of the Health Service Executive who literally draw lines on the map and say if one is on one side of the line, one will receive a first-class service, but that if one is on the other side of the line, one will receive whatever service it happens to make available at the time within existing resources. That is the type of rubbish that has become the hallmark of the Government and we want to see it stopped. In the context of the setting up of a unifying service, namely, the Health Service Executive, we want the service to be available to everyone in exactly the same way no matter in which part of the country one lives.