Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity to raise this serious problem which exists not alone in Dublin but throughout Ireland. I will briefly take this opportunity to congratulate the new Minister for Health and to wish her well. I would be grateful if the Deputy would convey my sentiments to her. However, there the honeymoon ends.
Health cuts are like a death in the family; until they visit you they do not exist. By way of some short illustrations I will point out the disastrous state of the health services resulting from inadequate and improper funding of the Eastern Health Board by the Department of Health. As a practising general practitioner I see at first hand every day the problems that have been created by the pesent financial crisis. Bread supplies to Cherry Orchard hospital were cut off for one day because the bill was seriously in arrears. An electrical supply firm on the north side of Dublin refused to supply the Eastern Health Board with necessary electrical equipment because the health board are in arrears to the tune of over £10,000. A builders' providers firm on the south side of the city refused to supply equipment such as doors and locks to the Eastern Health Board because they too are owed over £10,000 by that health board. Drug companies are threatening to withdraw drug supplies because the Eastern Health Board are nine months in arrears with their payments.
On the other side of the health services, elderly people, many of them homeless with no living families, require long term care in nursing homes. All of these people are means tested and have medical cards but find they must pay for simple nursing requirements such as incontinence pads, incontinence sheets, dressings and so on. Grants to private nursing homes, normally payable monthly, are in some cases four months in arrears, in many cases they are five or six months in arrears. The grant payment by the Eastern Health Board for long term patients in nursing homes is, in 1991, £39.50, in 1987 it was £39.50 and in 1983 it was £39.50. There has been no increase in grant payments for long term patients in nursing homes since 1983. This places an intolerable burden on nursing homes and on the families of the over-burdened and hard-pressed PAYE taxpayers who must fund the difference from limited incomes.
The Mater Hospital will this year alone have a shortfall of £2 million in their budget. Wards have been closed, further wards will be closed and tragically patients may die. That is a fact which can be confirmed by many of the consultants in the hospitals.
In the last six months there have been major financial scandals in this country. Indeed, for the last two months we have heard of them every day in the Dáil. There was a shortfall of £17.5 million in Aer Lingus Holdings, a shortfall of £8 million in Greencore, major financial scandals in Telecom Éireann and the Goodman organisation are under investigation. For the last three years there has been a two-tiered health service in operation, one for the fortunate to whom high tech, high quality medicine is available on demand and one for the unfortunate and underprivileged who by virtue of their economic and social circumstances have been relegated to the status of second class citizens under the present Coalition Government. This is morally and socially unjust and is against all the principles of a Christian and caring society. That is the present position in the Eastern Health Board area. In short, the health service is a disaster.
