The waiting list for cardiac surgery for children in Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin is approximately 160 and rising, compared to 120 at this time last year. Operations are regularly cancelled due to the lack of a surgeon or an intensive care bed or a qualified intensive care nurse.
There are two cardiac surgeons available to the hospital and they give one day per week for surgery. As a result, children who are due to have operations have their operations cancelled to allow urgent surgery to be carried out on newborn babies. There are also two cardiac consultants attached to the hospital and the number of patients they must attend to each week is, to put it mildly, staggering. The waiting list for a public out-patient is approximately 12 months. The Minister will agree this is unacceptable, particularly for a child with a heart condition.
I wish to outline what it means to have a child with a heart problem. I recently received a letter from a constituent which set out her deep concerns about her five year old son who has a heart condition. She told me her child's skin colour is quite blue, while his mouth and tongue are almost black. He cannot climb the stairs in his home and gets breathless walking from room to room. All outdoor journeys are conducted in a child's buggy. This year he started school and he must be carried to his classroom. It is not difficult to imagine how this child's quality of life would improve if the necessary surgery was available to him. That surgery should be carried out without further delay. However, this child is 106th on the waiting list. It must be heartbreaking for the parents to have a child in that condition and to know he is only 106th on the list. Indeed, it is heartbreaking for the parents of children who are behind and in front of him on the list.
Members of the public regularly complain that they cannot understand how this situation is allowed to continue. I have raised the issue of cardiac surgery for children but a recent Sunday newspaper carried a major article on the problem of waiting lists for cardiac surgery for adults, where there is also a huge problem. At a time when Ireland has a booming economy, it is difficult for parents, spouses and other relatives of ill people awaiting cardiac surgery to understand the situation. I hope that in his reply the Minister of State can give me some assurances. In particular, I ask him to arrange without further delay for another cardiac surgeon to be allocated to the Children's Hospital, Crumlin, and to have at least another cardiac consultant as well as providing more intensive care beds and ICU trained nurses. The theatres in Our Lady's Hospital are like something from the 1950s. The Minister of State should give some hope to people who have to face this dreadful situation every day. We would all like to see immediate attention being paid to this serious problem. I trust the Minister of State can give us some hope.