Mattie McGrath warns hundreds will miss cancer diagnoses

I want to be associated with your remarks of compliments and congratulations to the team here at the Convention Centre, and indeed to the Chairman of the Board, Faroesley, the Weir, the Board of Latham and Tipperary, to compliment them and wish them well for the future. Teachta, I am quite concerned about the answers you have given to Deputy Tobin. More than 450 cancer cases and 1,600 pre-cancer cases are likely to go undetected during the pause and screening during COVID. We have to deal with this, Teachta, because you said you get the point and you understand, but I don't think you do. I'm calling you in the Government to utterly sort this out, because it's just not good enough to those people. It may well take years to fully comprehend the misdiagnosis and the number of people, hundreds, who will have died due to the neglect and not being seen in time. And I don't say that lightly. Hundreds of people will have got life sentences. Professor John Crown, who we have great respect for, a former Ehanador, has said that the treatment delayed is treatment denied. That was the old editor, justice delayed is justice denied. But now, and I salute him and his colleagues, treatment denied is treatment delayed. It's shocking that cancers can be growing inside people and they're not aware of it and they're waiting and they might have attended their GPs and they're nervous and they're worried. The Government must swiftly address this problem, Teachta, and indeed, before pre-COVID, we wouldn't meet none like our targets that we had. We had targets of new patients attending rapid access breast, lung and prostate cancer clinics within the recommended time frame. This is pre-COVID, where a time frame of 95 per cent, the other HC's own targets for last year, however, was only 71 per cent, so we're missing 24 or 5 per cent of people in any case, before we hit the COVID hit. So it's an alarming situation and it has to be dealt with. Similarly, early intervention, systematic breast disease clinics for urgent breast cancer patients and rapid access clinics for prostate cancer patients were both 26 per cent below the HC target in 2019. So the HC wasn't fit for purpose before we hit COVID at all and it certainly isn't now. And I'm asking you, Taoiseach, to really deal with this. I don't mind telling Deputy Toby and telling me that you know and you're aware and we're going to catch up and all the letters you've sent out now inviting people in. People are scared to go in now because of you and RT have the life frightened of them, morning, noon and night, telling them just cocoon, stay at home. And people who want to go can't go, you'll say no, the letters now, but will they respond? Because they're so worried to go anywhere, people, especially elderly people. And it's time that you had a balance in the attitude with COVID and the attitude with the rest of the health service and the rest of the people's economy, mental health, cancer diagnosis and you name it. So, Minister, it was already accepted internationally that we were way behind and under-resourced in our health system, but especially in our cancer care treatments here in Ireland. And many, many graduates who have come out now in recent years have looked outside the public service to get jobs because of the conditions and pay and we need to support them. We're a short 500 consultants and they must be recruited, but you need to catch up here quickly. And I don't believe the Minister for Health, Mr Donnelly, Mr Donnelly, Mr Donnelly, are capable of doing this and backwards we're slipping. And hundreds of people will lose their lives as a result. Not one, but hundreds of people. Thank you, Deputy. Thank you. Taoiseach. I think we need, all need to be careful with language and how we describe things. People are not scared to attend screening services. People are not scared to go to hospital. Many are. And one of the key agenda and objectives as we moved into level five was to keep normal health services open. And that's been one of the clear differences between this level five lockdown, if we call it that, and the first lockdown. Where, yes, in the first lockdown, there was. And that's understandable, too, because a lot of people, you know, the whole experience of this virus, it was new, it was unprecedented. And essentially, whole wards, you know, it was, the COVID dominated the hospital experience. And yes, there were delays. And backlogs have been created because of delays occasioned by the first lockdown. That's reality. But we have to deal with that. And that's why an unprecedented allocation of 600 million was given for the winter initiative and for the resumption of services. And that has been followed through with a 4 billion allocation. I say it again, a 4 billion allocation to the health services for 2021. 2 billion of that to deal with COVID. And 2 billion to deal with the health service system itself. And that will lead to additional acute bed capacity of over 1,200 beds. It will lead to additional procurement of activity from the private hospitals. It will allow more intermediate care beds. It will allow for a greater additional access to diagnostics for GPs. It will allow for additional community health care networks and community specialist teams, particularly for older people and people with chronic disease. And all of the national screening programs have restarted a phased reintroduction of screening services. So, you know, definitely, you know, if you take Bowel Screen, for example, over 39,000 new invitations have been issued. 10,900 sample kits returned to the lab. Almost 400 patients were referred for colonoscopy. So these are people now who are using the screening services right now and who are responding to the services. I take your point that some people are still obviously afraid of getting COVID. And they're right to be afraid of getting COVID because no one should want to get COVID because it can damage your health. And I don't think it's fair to say that people are on the television screens every night scaring the life of other people. They're not. I think it's important to keep a national effort to get the numbers down. Look at what's happening in the continent at the moment. There are real challenges and pressures on acute hospital beds, on ICU beds, right across Europe. Thankfully, we have been spared that by timely intervention by government in relation to going to level 3 first, level 4 in some counties, restricting household visits, and then on to level 5. The combination of all of that has meant that Ireland now has its third lowest incident rate across Europe. And I think we should all work together to maintain that level of low incidence of COVID right through to the end of this month because that will ensure that we can retain the bulk of our hospital capacity and our community care capacity and primary care capacity for non-COVID illness. Thank you, T-shirt. It's the most effective way we can do this. And we should all row in behind it and accept that, you know, they're not daily bulletins. They might think they're twice weekly. But they're important to keep the level of national awareness and alertness to the dangers of COVID-19 out there and to keep that profile. Deputy McGrath. T-shirt, I don't think you get it. Almost 150,000 people have been seen by the main cancer screening services in the last six months of this year as a result of COVID reduction. COVID reduction have not been seen, dumblash scale. Over 12,400 more people are waiting for an inpatient day case, endoscopy, at the end of September compared to the same month last year. I mean, that's an increase of 56% people waiting on top of the already bad situation that we had. According to the Cancer Society, social distancing is meaning that capacity is reduced by 50% in hospitals. There are now 2,400 people on the urgent waitlist for endoscopy services. Almost a quarter, 24% or 580 people who have been waiting more than three months. That is intolerable. Just totally intolerable. And you might be writing out letters and inviting people back in, but they're not coming in. It's a dysfunctional and service. And whilst a dysfunctional and service, and you can throw all the money you like at it, it won't work. So we need 71 additional consultant to oncologists over the next number of years. Have they been recruited? They won't even come into the service because of the conditions that are there. So, Taoiseach, I'm very concerned. And all the people out there, and we are listening. And don't say that we're supporting the situation, but there has to be balance. And there's no balance and no logic to have the decision you've taken. So, trying to get these people back into the hospitals to be seen is vital for their own health and the health of their families as well. And I say it again, and all said lightly, hundreds of people will die because of this neglect. Taoiseach. As I said to the Deputy, COVID has had an impact. Deputy, COVID has had an impact. It has resulted in delays. The first lockdown resulted in very significant delays. It has resulted in that. And the alternative, I don't know what your alternative is, in terms of what happened in the last number of months. And you keep saying, oh, people aren't. Just take diabetic retina screening, for example. That resumed on the 1st of July. Okay. 20,000 people have been screened by the end of October. So, people did come through. And that is important to say. People are turning up for screening. People are turning up in our hospitals for elective procedures. And for diagnostic tests. And the message we should send out, really, is please do attend for your screening appointment. Do attend for your diagnostic test. And do go to hospital if you're not feeling well. That is important that we send that message out. And there is absolutely no... Look, the only issue is, is to now start affirming those working on the front line. Because COVID-19 is a once-in-a-hundred-year event, Deputy. Once-in-a-hundred-year event. It's impacting all strands of society and strata of society. It's extremely important that we affirm people who work on the front line as well. And I think, notwithstanding the restrictions, and they have to be there. Social distancing has to... You attack social distancing. Thank you, Taoiseach. The time is up. Have we any chance of reducing COVID-19? If people are going to say we don't have to social distance. You said that social distancing is reducing the number of operations. The time is up, Taoiseach, please. There has to be procedures and protocols in place. You must accept that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Taoiseach.