Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator O'Donovan for allowing me to share time with him. He is living the experience and has made two pertinent points about care and access to care. This is about quality of life for people and about access to service. There is a critical gap in the care of those with a neurological condition.

The theme of the campaign is "Patients Deserve Better", which highlights the need for 100 specialist neurologists in nursing and is also about the four we have in Cork and the 16 needed to provide, as Senator O'Donovan said, essential care to people with neurological conditions. One example involves a gentleman I know, Declan Groeger, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, MS, and who says:

There is one neurological nurse in CUH for epilepsy, one for stroke and there are two nurses for every other neurological patient. The two nurses I deal with are excellent but they are not MS specialists.

We need to ensure critical care is given for MS, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and other rare neurological conditions. We are highlighting the gap in the provision of services. We accept that much work is being done, we commend all of those doing the work and we understand that there is an issue with recruitment. However, just four nurses in Cork University hospital is a shortfall that we hope will be addressed as part of the HSE development plan for the Cork-Kerry region.

We had a briefing on community care last Monday with the HSE. This matter does not fall under community care but under hospital services. I support the neurological association of Ireland. Deputy Colm Burke is having a briefing today in the audiovisual room on this matter and the issue of provision of neurological care. It is about making sure we put in place extra nurses.