I would like to know what we are agreeing to. The section as amended would now read:—
"SECTION 9.
The Minister may, by Order made in respect of a specified health institution, direct—
(a) that institutional services shall be given in the institution to persons of a class specified by reference to their condition of health, or
(b) that institutional services shall not be given in the institution to persons of a class specified by reference to their condition of health."
The Minister has introduced an amendment for the purpose of showing that he is not proceeding on a class basis. But the Minister is taking power in this section to decide that certain classes of work shall not be done by surgeons, that certain classes of work will not be carried out by a physician in particular health institutions.
Does the Minister take power tointerfere with the working of a county surgeon in a county surgical hospital or to interfere with some particular class of work that the hospital is doing? Can he then, say, prevent appendices being taken out in a particular institution? Can he decide that a gall-bladder or a heart operation, instead of being carried out in the county hospitals in Clare, say, or Kerry, will be carried out, say, in Limerick? He would have power under this section to list certain classes of operation, or to see that they were regionalised. Generally, our county surgeons are up to a very high standard now and I do not know that the Minister should require power to limit the type of work done by any particular surgeon. He would appear to be taking power to do that. From another point of view the Minister is taking power to decide that in certain county hospitals certain classes of medical treatment will not be given. I think we would require some explanation from the Minister as to why he proposes to interfere in that particular kind of way.