Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Once again we are facing into a winter where the only things accident and emergency doctors have are flu jabs and prayers to help them with the inevitable onslaught.

We have fewer hospital beds now than we had in 1980 and nearly 200 beds are out of action. These are statements we have all heard before and we can say them until we are blue in the face. An article some weeks back entitled, This is the winter our health system will finally collapse, should have somehow resonated with the powers that be in the HSE and the Department of Health. My comments are directed towards those officials in the HSE and the Department of Health and not necessarily towards the Minister. I have no vendetta against the Minister - that is not my style - and I think he is a good Minister. His heart is in the right place and I have great respect for him.

In the article, medical journalist Dr. Muiris Houston warns:

A slow collapse of the health system this winter will likely look like this: the influenza epidemic begins; attendances at emergency departments increase as the flu hits vulnerable groups; patients with flu complications who require admission will fill up trolleys; some people who develop respiratory and cardiac failure will be moved to intensive care; the already inadequate number of ICU beds will fill up quickly, forcing intensive care specialists to ventilate people in operating theatres and even in emergency departments. There will be no spare intensive care capacity in Northern Ireland or Britain to tap into.

As a result, even urgent cancer surgeries will be cancelled, as many patients who undergo major surgery cannot be safely operated on without an intensive care bed to transfer them to post-operatively. All elective surgery is likely to be cancelled for a period of eight to 10 weeks, adding to the already enormous backlog of people waiting to be treated in the public health system. Emergency departments will choke up and some will be forced to close. Already overstretched GPs will not have the capacity, and for seriously ill people, the facilities, to offer treatment.

These are not the words of some dystopian novelist. His comments are accurate, realistic and utterly terrifying. There are enough faceless Department and HSE officials on large salaries to get on with the work in hand. I want to see some proactive solutions rather than reactive commentary from them, which we have seen previously. I look forward to hearing what solutions they come up with in the coming weeks.