In relation to the question which I raised in the House to-day and taking into consideration the reply from the Minister and in particular his replies to the supplementary questions, does a member, by asking such a question, incur the wrath of the present Minister for Health? The Minister made mean insinuations to-day. He went so far as to state that I had some old spite against the doctor concerned. Let me now say, as I stated already to-day, that never once in my life have I spoken to this man and never have I seen this man. Let me go further in defence of my honour and point out that, when an appointment in a certain hospital was being made recently, a young doctor was a candidate and I was asked to support him. Because he had the necessary qualifications, I supported him and voted for him. He happens to be the son of the man against whom the Minister states I have spite.
The question to-day had a direct bearing on the Health Act. Members of the Labour Party supported the present Minister and his Party when, as a Government, they introduced the Health Act. The Labour Party supported the Act because they believed that its introduction and implementation would give the people a better health service. For that reason, and that reason alone, the Labour Party were united in supporting the then Government.
In relation to the present case, I should point out that it concerned the illness of a baby boy. His mother attended the doctor in question and, being the possessor of a medical card, asked the doctor to attend the home and examine the baby. The doctor refused. His statement was that because of the shortage of petrol, he was unable to travel a distance of between two and two and a half miles. This was at the time of the Suez Canal crisis, and the doctor's excuse was shortage of petrol. Nevertheless, we all know that even though petrol was rationed at that time, doctors were not denied sufficient quantities of petrol to enable them to attend their duties.
I have a report from the father of this baby. He also wrote to the secretary of the South Cork Board of Public Assistance. As it was my duty as a public representative so to do, I raised the matter at the following meeting. After a discussion it was agreed that the parents should attend at the office of the assistant county manager and put their case before him in writing. This they did. The assistant county manager also got a report from the doctor and in that report reference was made to the fact that there had been some dispute of which I knew nothing and know nothing now. There was some dispute between himself as a doctor and an aunt of the baby in question. Surely, any dispute which may have occurred between a medical practitioner and a particular patient was not in itself sufficient to warrant the refusal of the doctor to attend the home in this particular instance.
He went further. As a last resort, while refusing to attend the home of the patient, he gave a note of admission to the local authority hospital. The baby was brought there and taken into the hospital where it received every possible care. However, a question arises. In view of the fact that the doctor did not examine the baby or even see it, what of his diagnosis of the case? My information is that the diagnosis was wrong.
The case was then submitted to the Department of Health. As stated by the Minister to-day, it was sent on the 26th February, 1957. Let me say this for the Minister for Health. Credit is due to him for the fact that the letter sent on the 26th February was acknowledged and answered on the 8th March —roughly a week later. According to that particular letter, further inquiries were made. Let me clear the case on this issue. The letter that was sent out roughly a week after receiving the first letter from the Cork board was sent out not at the behest of the present occupant of the Department of Health. It was sent out by his predecessor, a man who, by his actions, proved his interest in the case— Deputy T.F. O'Higgins.
On the 15th March, the assistant county manager replied to the Department and made it clear that, because some of the questions asked of him in the letter of the 8th March had a direct bearing on certain medical etiquette, it would be impossible for him, as a layman, to answer it. The Minister's office received that letter on the 16th March. Then what happened? Nothing was heard in spite of the fact that on many occasions inquiries were made at meetings of the South Cork Board. The matter was going on so long that a letter was again sent in the month of September asking for further information.
The letter was sent on the 4th September, but the Department, under the management of our present Minister for Health, acknowledged that letter of the 4th September only on the 26th October. As stated by the Minister to-day, further letters were sent from Cork to his Department on the 26th November and the 12th February of this year. In reply, one lonely letter arrived in Cork from the office of the present Minister on roughly the 6th or 7th February this year.
It is interesting to consider part of the reply given by the Minister to-day. He states that much grave concern is felt, that, to use his own words here, "it became apparent that the large number of patients covered by medical cards in the dispensary district in which the complaint arose had a bearing on the issue". Let me tell the Minister, should he not be aware of it although I do not believe it, that recommendations, submissions and applications in relation to alterations in dispensary districts have been in the Department of Health from the South Cork Board of Public Assistance for at least the past eight or ten years. Unfortunately, the southern committee got no support or little support from either the Department of Health or, indeed, from some of the dispensary officers concerned in trying to improve the situation in these areas. Does the Minister now suggest that people are expected to await the decision of some Minister for Health in the far-distant future before they can expect a doctor to attend to his duties where they concern the holders of medical cards in these areas?
It would be interesting to know the views of the Minister in this particular case. The Minister again, in his vicious attitude adopted towards this question to-day, made certain suggestions not alone to me for raising this question but to my colleagues, Deputy Casey and Deputy M.P. Murphy. On many occasions, considering it to be my duty, I raised this issue at southern committee meetings. On different occasions I rang the Department of Health. I got nothing but the greatest co-operation from the officials in so far as they were concerned. I did all that because this case was going on for so long, and because we could get no decision on it. As far back as the January meeting of that board, the chairman—a decent, respectable member of the present Government Party—suggested that the only course open to me was to table a question for reply in the Dáil. I stated then without any hesitation that I would be slow to adopt such an attitude in so far as it affected an individual case under the Health Act. Ultimately, I had no alternative. I had to adopt the course I adopted today—little expecting the type of reply I received from the Minister.
The Minister may say that something has happened during the past couple of months. That is quite true. An official of the Department of Health, at the request, I presume, of the Minister, called on the parents of this baby. Certain questions were asked. The irony of it was that each question that was asked had already been answered. The answers to each question had already been submitted both verbally and in writing to the manager of the southern committee by the parents on this particular issue. Therefore, I am entitled to ask the Minister for what purpose or reason was an official of the Department sent from Dublin to Bishopstown, County Cork, to seek information already at the disposal of the Minister.
I do not wish to be too long on this discussion. However, what struck me as most forceful and interesting were the Minister's mean insinuations, to which we are so used in this House, in his reply to a supplementary question by my colleague, Deputy M.P. Murphy, in relation to national records. Surely it had no direct or even indirect bearing on the treatment of a patient? When national records were required, the member he so rudely interrupted to-day was but a baby in arms. Some of us, because of our age, cannot claim any connection with a national record. However, we can openly say that on each and every occasion when we had an opportunity we gave full credit to those people who possessed such a record.
I want to ask the Minister this question. Does this mean, from his statement to-day, that the holder of a national record can, even when he is a doctor employed by a local authority, with any degree of justification, refuse to attend in the case of the illness of a baby? Does it mean that the holder of a national record can, at his own discretion, give a note for admission to a hospital without knowing anything about the illness of the baby?
A good member of Fianna Fáil is dead—God rest his soul—a Cork man. As the present Minister for Health knows, he had reason to report a specific instance affecting the same medical officer. He had reason to fight to the utmost in the Department but, unfortunately, hard fighter as he was, he was forced by certain organisations to drop the case; and the Minister, I am fully convinced, is fully aware of all the facts in relation to it.
