Paul Murphy: Urges People Power to Save Navan Hospital

Thanks to Sinn Fein for bringing this motion forward which I support. I want to pay tribute to the people in Navan and in the region for mobilising, for coming out in their thousands to defend and seek to ensure the future of their hospital. They're absolutely right to do so. I understand there's another protest planned for the 9th of July. It is only through those people power mobilisations that the hospital and the emergency department at Navan will be defended. And I think I would prepare those people that from particularly the government's TDs in the area they will hear all sorts of positive soothing noises telling them not to worry, that it will be okay and so on. But I think those people who have been mobilising, who have been campaigning for so long, they know what is being attempted here, which is really death by a thousand cuts. And if the government and the HSE are unchecked and aren't stopped by a movement which says no, we need to continue to go, we need to continue to have a full proper emergency department in Navan, well then that process will continue. And I think it is only people power that will be able to stop it. And, you know, when those campaigners and people who are coming out to the protests and the meetings and so on, are looking and wondering, oh, you know, maybe it will be okay, maybe this logic of centralisation and so on, maybe there's a medical basis to it, which is always the argument they try to make. I would just tell those people to go and look at the experience of the Midwest region. And it's just on a daily basis. The same arguments were made then in terms of the closure of regional hospitals, that this makes sense, have to centralise it and so on. But the resources weren't put in place into Limerick, and the result is you have massive overcrowding on a daily basis. The disaster of this process of centralisation, which in reality becomes an excuse for cutbacks and downgrading, is just witnessed on a daily basis in Limerick and in the Midwest region. And it's why this plan absolutely must be stopped. And one of the points, good points made in the motion about the, you know, extraordinary waiting times for emergency departments at Connolly Hospital, at Blanchestown, at the hospital in Drogheda. But one of the things that struck me when looking at them, is there you're talking about 12, 9, 11 hours across the state as an average. In Tallah Hospital at the moment, the average wait time for someone to go to A&E is 18 hours. That's absolutely scandalous. And the figures across the country are absolutely scandalous. And that's just the average. People are left waiting significantly longer than that. And the wait time in Tallah A&E, in Drogheda, in Blanchestown, in Connolly Hospital, they are an emergency, but they're no accident. They're the result of decades of neglect of our health service. By successive governments underfunding our hospitals, running the staff ragged, not providing the investment into our hospitals to expand capacity, and not bringing private hospitals into public ownership, but instead continuing with the logic of a two-tier health service, or almost three-tier health service, which only works if there's a problem with the first tier, or the second or third tier, the public tier. The private tier won't make any money if the public health service provides the sort of service that people need. So instead of downgrading our hospitals, we need investment to improve our hospitals across the board, to hire more staff, to support the staff that we have, and to build a top-quality Irish national health service that we can be proud of. I want to take the opportunity to raise some other health-related points in relation to the current situation in terms of COVID with the Minister. One point I want to make is that there are now 200 health workers who have been long-term sick with COVID, who now face having the sick leave scheme that they're on being closed down at the end of this month. There are workers who helped keep the health service run during the crisis. Many of them would have caught the virus through their work, and are now suffering debilitating long-term COVID. But certainly what has been reported was that the government was planning to pull the rug out from them, scrapping the paid leave scheme, and failing to engage with SIP2. If the Minister is saying that's not going to happen, that will be very welcome news. I would also, obviously not in this debate, because the focus should be on Navin, but I think it is important for the Minister to make a statement about what's happening in terms of the COVID situation. I think the INMO, they're the people on the front lines, they're ringing the alarm bells in terms of the levels of hospitalisation, over 600 people in hospital, and the rate of increase, over 16% increase, kind of week on week of hospitalisation. And I do find that like in the Minister's comments you read in the media, and the government's comments generally, you hear a lot of talk of living with COVID. But if living with COVID is to mean anything, the government actually has to do some things to enable us to live with COVID. We can't just continue on as normal and say, oh, we're living with COVID, because then the results will be tens and tens, and then hundreds and then thousands of unnecessary deaths, both through COVID and through the impact on our health service generally. So we do need actually to see a plan, an action in terms of living with COVID. A few things quickly, I'd say one, the government, we need to get back to a situation, in my opinion, where people are wearing masks inside, on public transport and crowded spaces and so on. I think the best way for the government to signal that and for that to happen is to send out quality FFP2 or N95 masks, the kind of masks we get for free in here, send them out to people, to their homes, have them available at public transport at bus stations, train stations, etc. And just try to re-normalise the idea that we need to go back for a period in time to wearing masks where people possibly can. Big public health ads around it, etc. Let's invest in this, it makes sense to do it. Secondly, I was disappointed to see that the free antigen tests for relatives of those who have COVID have been remembered. We should be encouraging as much testing as possible throughout the population. People find out when they have it as quickly as possible. So antigen tests should be made free for all. And the third and final point I'll make is in relation to ventilation. I mean, it's now over six months since we passed our bill in terms of giving workers the right to clean air through ventilation or filtration, including in schools. On that day, it was I think the 1st of December, the Minister of English said that, don't worry, we're not just promoting you here. We're very eager to have this implemented. It might make sense to do it through regulation. We're very open to that. And I'll give you a call. You've got a letter telling you it's been done. It hasn't been done. We're implementing the changes you suggested. You're implementing the changes we suggested? Most of them. The HSA, you've got communication on that. We got a letter didn't say it was being done. Not at all. Read it again then. This is a few months ago. Only about two weeks ago. Oh, we haven't got that. I'm just going to keep talking because every time I say something, you say it's been done. Can we please nationalise the private health hospitals? Have you decided to do that? No. Okay. Well, I will go and check. That would be excellent, obviously, news if these things are being implemented, because I think we actually need to put these measures in place. So I'll go and find this letter. I was off with COVID the last couple of weeks, so it's possible it came in. And we'll go and have a look for it. And I leave it there. And I wish the people of Navin and surrounding areas very well in their struggle to keep the hospital. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.