Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish Senator Mulherin well in her quest to bring Pope Francis west of the Shannon. No doubt there would be people of all ages gathered around the gable wall, if that comes to pass.

Last week, we had a debate about reducing the voting age to 16, and whatever one thinks of that proposal, there is no doubt that we need to engage the trust of young people in the political system, but for that happen and for them to believe in politics, they need to see that politics actually works. One area, tragically, we would all agree politics seems not to work is in the area of the necessary reforms and improvements to our health service to a considerable degree. Too often, debates on the health service break down on tribal lines, and part of that is because politicians often have a sense of impotence about whether any change is possible. I am talking in particular about the ever-recurring problem of waiting lists in accident and emergency departments, for hospital beds and for scans and procedures. As we all know, that problem can get worse when the weather worsens, but it is a recurring problem. One has only to read the Order of Business and the Official Report of these Houses to see the concern of individual Members of the Oireachtas. The Minister told us on 31 January that it was time to break the vicious cycle that leaves patients waiting in unacceptable circumstances.

I bring all this up because I believe it is my duty to draw the House's attention to one particular story. A courageous and articulate young woman called Helen Murray has been in the media recently, and in touch with me, to describe her very negative experience of waiting six days to get an MRI scan. She was told there was a possibility she could have multiple sclerosis, MS, and that only the MRI scan can rule that out. As somebody who had never had any health issues prior to that, one can imagine her terror and how that was exacerbated by having to spend 22 hours in a waiting room of the accident and emergency department in the Mater Hospital to be seen by a doctor. She makes the valid point that it is not just about people lying on trolleys. She spoke about how she spent the night on plastic chairs with elderly people, people in pain, people who were vulnerable and people who simply cannot afford private health care where waiting lists can be a problem too. She said that many did not have access to food because they were too petrified to move from their seat to go to a café in case their name would be called and they would lose their spot. That did happen when somebody went home to get some rest. Somebody came around ticking boxes, discovered they were gone and that person lost their place in an interminable queue. She spoke about the problem of food machines only taking coins, in a world where people use a card or even their telephones to pay for items. She said many were frozen with the cold as the sliding doors were constantly opening and closing, and pillows or blankets were not given to those waiting.

In a service oriented society, how is it possible that even basic things, like treating well people waiting to be triaged or those waiting for further news, do not seem to be possible? In her particular case, the problem was that the MRI scan could not be done over the weekend. To make matters worse, when she got a CT scan and an X-ray after a long wait, she was sent home to come back on a Monday only to have another long wait. That involved giving her a bed in the hospital which she did not need because she did not need to be hospitalised but she was hospitalised because the scan could not be organised.

I am not telling the Leader anything he does not know but I believe he would agree that it is my duty to do so when people feel this inordinate frustration. This is a 23 year old person with an interest in politics who cannot understand how this is going on in a First World country. The solutions are difficult, but we have to keep focusing on them. We also have to keep raising the plight of these people.I am not interested in having a debate which will break down on tribal lines. However, we have to do our duty for these citizens by keeping these issues to the forefront in politics.