I had a Private Notice Question down for last Wednesday but I did not have an opportunity to have it discussed. It was to ask the Minister for Health if he will make the necessary finance available to the Southern Health Board to enable hip replacement operations to be carried out in Tralee General Hospital as these operations were discontinued due to the lack of finance available to purchase orthopaedic implants.
I now ask the Minister for Health if he will make the finance available to the Southern Health Board to enable hip and knee implant operations to be carried out in the Tralee hospital. We are all glad and satisfied in Kerry that the most up to date hospital in Ireland was opened in Tralee 15 months ago. It cost £20 million and it is a great asset in the county. The people are satisfied completely with the general staff who are doing excellent work.
However, we have a big problem. We have not been having knee or hip replacement operations since 1 October because there is a shortage of finance to purchase the equipment for orthopaedic implants. The hospital staff are satisfied that if £20,000 were made available, or even less, to the Southern Health Board and allocated to the hospital, those operations could be carried out between now and Christmas.
In Tralee we have two orthopaedic surgeons, one permanent and one temporary. The temporary surgeon replaces a permanent man who went to Dublin recently, but the appointment will be filled permanently in the near future. The two surgeons are being paid by the Southern Health Board and it is important that they be given the equipment to do these operations. We have a waiting list of 80 patients in Kerry and the cost of each operation, using the implant equipment, would be about £600. The two orthopaedic surgeons could do six operations or more per week between now and Christmas.
Before the new general hospital was opened in Tralee, Kerry patients had to go to Cork and they were on a waiting list for one to two years, suffering tremendous pain from arthritic and rheumatic complaints. Since the Tralee hospital was opened, the waiting list has been cut down substantially. Unfortunately, Kerry seems to be the wettest county in the country and it is notable that many complain of arthritis and rheumatism.
