Sean Barrett (Independent)

We asked the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Dinny McGinley, to justify how he changed his mind in two years from being pro-democracy.

Let us turn to this matter. There is always a committee and the Department of Health claims it is in favour of fairness. However, if one looks at the size of the waiting list as well as the extension of the medical card scheme to those over 70 years, even though it was known this would be regressive in the absence of a means test, one will see the Department of Health has no record of acting fairly. It is wrong that it behaves like it did just now.

I regret that the Bill proposed by Senators MacSharry, Crown and Darragh O'Brien has been received so unfavourably. There is evidence that drugs are an effective way of treating cancer. I think the Senators should get that fact on the record. In September 2004, an article in The Lancet by Nick Bosanquet and Karol Sikora stated that in the 1980s, 66% to 69% of spending in the United States on cancer treatment was on hospital care and only 3% to 6% was on drug treatment. Since 1990 there has been a shift away from hospitals towards treatments in the physician's office and drug-based treatments. The amount of money mentioned as being spent on drugs is a fraction of the total health budget.

There should be more open-mindedness in the Department of Health because when one looks at the Milliman report on costs in the VHI, it shows that treatments which internationally should take 3.7 days take 11.6 here. They put that down as the major reason for the VHI's problems with high costs. These costs include €1,000 a bed per night, and the nights seem to glide by. I understand the Department has Milliman back to advise it. Given the high cost of hospitalisation in Ireland, to say we will not use drugs because they would cost too much money seems to be a false economy. It is not where much of the money is spent and it goes against the trends I mentioned.

It was estimated by the Lancet Oncology Commission in September-October 2011 that from 1980 to 2010, anti-cancer medicines increased life expectancy of the average patient with cancer by almost one year at a mean cost in the USA of $6,500, a sum of money which would not keep an Irish patient in a hospital bed for three nights. When the Minister of State threw away the prepared script, she referred to the high cost of institutionalisation when she spoke on the treatment of old people. One must have an open mind to what Senators MacSharry and Crown have said about these drug treatments. One must also look at the very high cost of institutionalising a patient in Ireland, as outlined in the Milliman report. We need to open our minds. The Minister of State referred to the monopoly suppliers of drugs, but how does that compare with a health service that doubled the number of staff from 55,000 to 110,000 since the mid-1980s and has extremely high costs? It has always protected an attempt to have a monopoly health insurance company in the country. The issues raised by the two Senators relate to drug treatments for patients, who we are always supposed to put first and I hope that we always will do. They deserve more consideration than the Department has given them.