Danny Healy-Rae Raises Urgent Concerns Over Hospital Waiting Lists
Danny Healy-Rae addressed the Dáil about the impact of the coronavirus on patients in Kerry and beyond, saying routine elective procedures have been delayed for years and primary care access is severely restricted. He demanded to know who ordered cancellations and called for solutions on waiting lists, bed reductions, flu vaccine shortages and mental-health supports.
Hospital services and waiting lists
Tralee General Hospital is carrying out only emergency orthopaedic procedures, the Deputy said, with routine operations pushed back four to five years and urgent elective cases waiting up to two years. He described patients in constant pain, repeated A&E attendances and pre-op delays, and criticised replies from the Department of Health that waiting times have simply been "impacted as a direct result of the corona payment."
Bed reductions and visitor restrictions
He detailed local bed cuts affecting Killarney and local nursing homes, citing 15 beds lost at Killarney and 27 beds at St. Columbanus's public nursing home, and noted a new single-room hospital that currently lacks wards. Visitor restrictions were highlighted as a severe hardship for elderly patients, with families sometimes choosing to take relatives home rather than leave them without visits.
Primary care, disability supports and flu vaccine supply
Primary-care services for disabled people, children and stroke patients have been delayed, including vehicle adaptations and other supports. The Deputy said GPs are largely limited to phone consultations and many patients cannot get flu vaccinations because supplies are short and doctors must prioritise who receives the limited doses.
Mental health pressures and revolving admissions
He warned of rising depression and suicidal behaviour amid the pandemic and said Kerry lacked adequate mental-health facilities even before COVID-19. He cited a clinician's description of a "revolving door of admissions" where patients are repeatedly discharged and readmitted due to insufficient resources.
Accountability and government response
Danny Healy-Rae asked who issued orders to cancel or defer consultant appointments and elective procedures, pressing whether responsibility lay with the Government, the Minister for Health or health authorities. In reply, the Tanaiste acknowledged pressures on services, confirmed increased health funding for 2021 and said supplies and resources are being prioritised and increased to address demand for vaccines and mental-health supports.
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Thank you very much, Tanaiste. I want to raise today with you the adverse effect that the coronavirus is having on people with varying other illnesses or health issues in Kerry or indeed all around the country. At present now there are no orthopedic procedures being carried out in Trilly General Hospital unless emergencies or fractures or something very obvious. urgent. Now people are being told that routine procedures will take four to five years and urgent is two years for elective procedures. Sick people can't visit GPs or GPs can't visit them, mostly only on the phone and this system doesn't help their confidence to recover. Bed reductions in our community hospitals. Killarney throws off 15 beds. Maybe you would consider opening up the single beds in Khmer hospital, a new hospital that does not have wards, only single rooms. St. Columbanus's public nursing home throws off 27 beds. This is impacting badly on the people in the Killarney catchment area. Patients in hospitals in hospitals or homes can't have visitors very hard than elderly people. We should be able to facilitate one or two family members every four or five days. I know one family that brought their father home because they couldn't bear the thought of having him not being seen in Trilly General. Patients in Trilly General. Elderly sick people, more likely than not, don't have time on their side. The primary care set for disabled people, children and elderly people who have strokes and different things to adapt their car or to help them buy a car and modified vehicle applications are now not being processed. Where are all the billions being given to the HSE? If we double the HSE allocation, I don't believe they would or could deliver a proper service. People in Kerry can't get the flu vaccine. Doctors don't have only a very small amount of vaccines and actually have to decide who needed most. And people are ringing up every day with over a month and they can't get the vaccine. Depression and suicides have increased because of the virus. It's very clear that we in Kerry, even before the virus, don't have adequate facilities to meet patients with mental health issues. Even Dr. Finitri has said patients who have repeated admissions because of lack of adequate facilities have to be let out again and brought back in again. She calls it the revolving door of admissions. I know of one person who has been waiting in constant pain since the first of March for a pre-op and had a pre-op assessment just on the 12th of August and still was up again recently after seven times going to A&E in Cork and is still in constant pain and needs a procedure. I put down a parliamentary question to the Department of Health and the reply I got back. It is recognised that waiting times for scheduled appointments and procedures have been impacted as a direct result of the corona payment. That's not good enough. Thank you. Dr hammondに wa bathe pik推 Pizza priest. In relation to the flu vaccine, there is very high demand for that at the moment. It is encouraging that people who would not have thought the flu vaccine in previous years are really seeking to be vaccinated this year. That is a real positive person. Supply is short, not just in Ireland but internationally. There is more on the way. And no matter what happens, we will vaccinate many more people against flu this winter than we have in any winter in the past. So that's a really important progress being made there. We do need to prioritise, and it is those who need it the most who are being prioritised, healthcare workers, older people, and those with chronic conditions, and also children between 2 and 12 using the nasal spray to vaccinate them. In terms of suicide and deliberate self-harm, we had a discussion about the mental health impact of the pandemic and the lockdown at Cabinet Committee on Social Policy there the other day. The evidence that we have, the research that we have so far, doesn't show any increase in suicide or in deliberate self-harm during the pandemic period, so please God that will continue to be the case and will continue to be true. But it is certainly the case that the pandemic and the lockdown is having an impact on people's mental health, and we are seeing an increase in calls and enquiries with mental health services and resources are being increased precisely because of that. On waiting lists, I totally appreciate what you are saying, and I know there are far too many people waiting far too long in Ireland for the operation that they need or the appointment that they need. The health budget for 2021 is £4 billion higher than this year. It is an extraordinary increase in the budget, ten times the kind of increases that we might have seen in the past, and £2 billion of that is for Covid and £2 billion is for non-Covid, and hopefully that will allow us to make real inroads into those waiting lists in 2021. Just this morning when we spoke about health service workers, a young fella, he told me that since February he has been, he's lame, and he was told today that he will have to wait three years before he's seen to. What I want to know, Tarnished, is, and the people of Kerry and Ireland want to know who's responsible for telling or giving the order to specialists and consultants in the hospitals to cancel or defer appointments and to defer elective procedures. What are the people of these specialists going to be doing in the meantime? Is it the government? Is it the Minister for Health? Is it Neffitt or Tony Houlin? Because people can die from other illnesses or diseases as well, and just because the coronavirus arrived doesn't mean that they're going to not get other illnesses or suffer great pain, and indeed die from other illnesses. All right, thank you. You have to recognise that. Thank you, Deputy. And Tony Houlin has to recognise that. Right, thank you. Tarnished. We do recognise that, Deputy, and I know the Chief Medical Officer recognises that too. One of the real concerns that we have during the pandemic is what people call secondary deaths. People who have a heart attack, for example, not going to the hospital because they think it's overwhelmed and they don't want to bother the doctors and nurses. People who have stroke symptoms, perhaps delaying seeking medical help because of the pandemic, and that's a real worry that we have, and that's why we're sending out the message to everyone who needs medical attention to seek it. We have 800 more beds, 400 acute, 400 sub-acute than we had back in March, and many fewer than that number of patients in hospital with COVID. If you look at the level of overcrowding, the number of people on trolleys in our hospitals, it hasn't been lower since records began. So we have capacity, and we are saying to people that if they need medical help, that they should. On occasion, hospitals do have to cancel operations. There may be very different reasons in different cases why that is. It could be because of lack of beds, but it could also be for other reasons too. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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