John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business to ask the Minister for Health to attend the House today to address the issues that arose with respect to the letter by the Irish emergency medicine trainees that courageously highlighted some glaring deficiencies and some misperceptions that are being advanced, one hopes inaccurately, by the authorities with respect to the number of patients on trolleys, the effect it has on the quality of their care and the downstream effect it has on those waiting for other aspects of care. It must be stated that while these colleagues have been repeatedly referred to in the media as senior colleagues, they are trainees. They are junior doctors. They are non-consultant hospital doctors who have no security in their jobs, can be fired and can last as long as the next contract and disappear. For that reason, particular tribute must be paid to their courage and bravery in blowing the whistle on this. They are not the most invulnerable section of the Irish health system and as somebody who has been very critical of people who have been afraid to point out deficiencies and blow whistles, I express my admiration for them. I believe the problem is larger than the one to which they specifically referred. Mere adherence to HIQA practices within emergency rooms will not fix the problem.

If the Minister comes to the House, I would also like to draw his attention to something that troubles me greatly. There has been genuine difference of opinion and discussion among sincere people who can take different positions with respect to what has been happening with medical cards over the past year. Some would suggest it is all a question of tightening up probity while others would suggest something far more deliberate is happening with the tightening up of what were previously described as discretionary medical cards whose very existence is apparently being questioned by the authorities. In this regard, I was very troubled to receive correspondence from Dr. Ruairi Hanley, a respected GP and medical journalist, who wrote in a national newspaper that-----