Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am seriously aggrieved at how sick people have been treated by senior management in the HSE. When one needs a national car test one telephones the appropriate body for an appointment, a suitable time is confirmed and one attends with a vehicle for the test. When one needs a passport one gets an appointment time to meet somebody from the Passport Office.

On two occasions I have had to bring two relations to hospital. One one occasion I had to bring a relative to Tullamore Hospital for an appointment. On the second occasion I had to bring a relative to St. James's Hospital for a scan. On both occasions I talked to the people who were seated around me. Like me, they had waited for a couple of hours. I discovered that 30 people had been given the same appointment time to attend St. James's. I also discovered that around 20 people had been given the same appointment time to attend Tullamore Hospital. Such a practice is scandalous. Our sickest and most vulnerable people have been and are being treated with utter contempt, which is not good enough. I will be very disappointed in the HSE, which has a lot of senior management, if it cannot sort out this mess. I ask the Leader to bring pressure to bear on the Minister for Health to resolve the problem. Furthermore, I talked to a consultant about the practice. He told me that some people do not turn up for their appointment, etc. I bet that anyone who gets an appointment to attend an oncology ward shows up on time. The consultant's answer was unfeasible.