Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister on the range of work outlined in his statement today. I listened keenly to what he said on older people and people with dementia and other disabilities. I commend him on the attention he has given to home care on foot of the documentary on RTE by Brendan Courtney. Deputy Mary Butler and I, co-convenors of the all-party group on dementia, are going to visit Scotland this evening to meet with NGOs, officials and the Scottish Minister for Health to learn more about their progressive policies on dementia care and care for older people, including home care. We have made the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Helen McEntee, aware of that and I will report back to her on it.

The matter I wish to raise will be no surprise to Members. The longest waiting lists in the country are the lists of 4,300 women on the CUMH gynaecology outpatient waiting list and the 512 on the surgery waiting list. I thank the Minister for making time to meet with the doctors involved on his recent visit to Cork. It had been hugely frustrating to them that their side of the story was not being told, as was also the case with the management side. Building on the goodwill emerging from that meeting, what concrete actions will the Minister take? What is the timeframe for these actions? I know from a recent parliamentary question that he will have a follow-up meeting in six weeks. What date has been set for this meeting? The Minister has requested a report from the HSE action plans for 2017 in respect of both the inpatient and outpatient waiting lists. Will this report address the particular issues in CUMH, which are outliers? What action will he take to provide a sustainable solution to build real capacity and not something which just relies on the National Treatment Purchase Fund? Will we have to wait for a "Prime Time Investigates" programme to get action on this in the same way we had to for home care?