Paul Murphy Criticises Slauncia Progress amid Long Waiting Lists

Over four years ago, Slauncia promised a universal single-tier service where patients are treated on the basis of health need rather than on ability to pay. Where are we today? A further embedded, deeply unequal two-tier system, the weaknesses of which were badly exposed by the pandemic. Almost a million people on hospital waiting lists, overworked and underpaid staff in our hospitals, and huge amounts of public money ending up in the private health care system through, for example, the National Treatment Purchase Fund. Then you have the resignations of Laura McGahey and Tom Keane from the Slauncia Care Implementation Advisory Council, and then Professor Geraldine McCarthy, Chair of the Board of the South-Southwest Hospital Group. In her resignation letter, she wrote that I have waited a long time for developments led by successive ministers for health and government, who have recent information and my own experiences tell me that we are no nearer to the required reform than where we were six years ago. Is the government actually committed to what was in Slauncia Care, or is it just politically expedient to say you agree with it? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just on that last point, I do not know what the circumstances are that necessitates the travel to Limerick. It must be regulatory or a particular aspect of the education programme, so we are open to any submissions from the University of Limerick in respect to Technological University. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I am very pleased to have that completed here. That is something we are open to having pursued. Deputy Murphy has raised the issue of the health needs and the care. A lot of progress has been made. Deputy Le Harte raised the issue of extra hospital beds, for example. In the generality debate that has ensued, there are about 800 additional hospital beds this year. That is the largest and biggest number of new hospital beds opened in a single year for decades. That is the level of state investment in the state system that is now occurring. On home helps, about 5 million additional hours were provided for in this budget. The waiting list last year was about 7,250 we are waiting. Now there is about 1,307 waiting for home helps. The next stage has to be to try and get more people into that workforce. We have to look at work permits and facilitating of people coming into the country to work in our health sector, as well as training up and skilling up people in the home care health sector, which is growing and will continue to grow. We do not want waiting lists in that area because it is very connected to the acute hospital system. Then the Minister will be establishing a taskforce shortly and also announcing a waiting list initiative, which will again concentrate on a further level of expansion of acute hospital beds, intensive care beds, but also the whole area of elective care facilities and ambulatory care facilities. The Minister is close to bringing proposals to the Government in respect of the ambulatory care in Cork, Galway and Dublin. There will be additional electives that will be required as part of the client to care programme. That is more medium term in terms of giving us the capacity to do the electives. In terms of the waiting list, I have met with Tom Keane and Laura McGahey yesterday and Deputy Murphy has raised that. I think their issues relate more to structure. In fact, they would acknowledge that a lot of progress has been made on a lot of fronts in terms of activities levels, but that there is a fundamental structure from their perspective issue in terms of the role of the office within the Department of Health vis-à-vis the HSE. That is something I will reflect on and we will reflect on in terms of the structural approach to implementing Slyung-to-Care, but the Government remains very committed to the implementation of the principles of Slyung-to-Care right across the Board in all aspects. Deputy Barry raised the issue of the Willis report. I have dealt with that earlier in terms of organ retention. There are two reviews on the way within the hospital that are required. It was not in accordance with the guidelines and the rules and regulations laid out by the HSE itself in respect of the retention of organs, particularly in respect of post-mortems and the need to have full consent with the parents in terms of what happens after the post-mortem. and the return of the organs to the parents for either burial or for cremation, but that did not happen on this occasion. As I said earlier, the Minister is seeking assurance that this was not a practice across other hospital sites during the pandemic, and he obviously has not had a response to that yet, but is hoping to get a response to it. Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the Monkstown situation. I will talk to the Minister for Health in relation to that. That could be a medical council issue. It could be a regulatory issue in terms of that. That would be my own observation. If not, my view is that if there is no alternative and the 72-year-old is here in Hale and Harty, then common sense should prevail and provision should be made for it. In terms of Citizens' Assembly on drugs, again, I will come back to the Deputy on that because, now that we are coming out of COVID, we might be in a position to accelerate. There are about three areas that we said we would identify for Citizens' Assembly. One is the Mayoral situation in Dublin. One is drugs, and I think your point about the decriminalisation of drug users is well-made, and that this is fundamentally a health issue as opposed to a justice issue is well-made also. I will come back to you in terms of the timelines around that. In terms of Deputy MacDonald's point about the reconfiguration or progressing disability, again, I will talk to the Minister for that in terms of what is essentially real difficulty in terms of progressing disability, which is taking resources out of existing special schools and then saying that they should access those resources through a central provision. That is causing undue stresses and strains. It is not something I agree with, and I have made that clear to the HSE. Thank you. Thank you.