Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also wish to raise an issue on healthcare. I was thinking earlier how we are always asking for the Minister for Health. As I was leaving the Chamber earlier, he was in the anteroom and I thought about how when we want him, we cannot get him. However, he may have been there on other business.

No one who listened to "Drivetime" on RTÉ radio yesterday evening could have failed to have been moved by the harrowing stories of the nurses and doctors, but particularly those of the nurses who spoke. I was shattered to hear their experiences. They spoke of excessive demands, workloads, staff shortages. They spoke of the lack of adequate staff and meaningful engagement. They talked about safety around workers and patients being compromised by relentless work practices. I checked and the HSE has confirmed that 107 vacant nurse and midwife posts are in the Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar. In a later press release Saolta said it hopes to recruit 55 nurses next year. That is 55 out of 107 vacancies. What are the nurses and doctors, the front-line staff, saying? They are saying that they are frustrated and exhausted. There was a nurse crying on the telephone last night saying she does not know where to go. They are simply broken by the system. So many people have either left or opted out. The Mayo region deserves better. The people of Mayo and of this country deserve better.

I know that there is a crisis, that there is Covid and that there are many other pressing needs, but the situation to which I refer is clearly not acceptable. There is so much talk of how the nurses and doctors are our heroes - we have heard that too often - but they just want action, support and to do their jobs. They are in a work environment. They are not machines; they humans who are exposed to Covid and exhaustion. Their families are concerned about them. I am asking for some sort of debate. I could come in here every day, to focus on scoliosis tomorrow and Limerick hospital the next day and then Mayo, but we are in crisis. Successive Governments have squandered money in relation to resourcing these people to do their work. I want to highlight it on behalf of the people of Mayo and the doctors and nursing staff of Mayo University Hospital.