I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. The senior citizens of Tralee are seeking a district hospital which will cater for older people who require long-term care close to their homes, friends and relatives; post-operative patients who need convalescent care and those who need residential hospice care. Currently, they must go to St. Columbanus Home, Killarney, which, although an excellent district hospital, is considered too far away for the elderly people of Tralee to travel and for family and friends to visit.
In many cases they are unable to travel because of disabilities, old age, etc. A purpose built unit is needed in Tralee for the care of the elderly within reasonable reach of the general hospital so that they will have access to the facilities there. It would make a great deal of sense if a district hospital were located on the grounds of the general hospital because many facilities and services provided by the general hospital could also be made available to the district hospital. That certainly would reduce expense.
Senior citizens comprise a significant segment of the population in Tralee. According to the 1996 census report, Tralee had a population of 19,056 – obviously this figure has increased substantially since – and of that figure, 18 per cent were aged 65 or over; in County Kerry 14 per cent of the population was over 65 years. This means that in 1996 2,349 people in this area were aged 65 or over. The population of Tralee has increased significantly since as more people have moved in from the country.
Previous efforts to get a district hospital for Tralee have ended in failure. Efforts to have the former St. Catherine's Hospital converted to a district hospital failed some years ago and that building now houses Kerry County Council offices. An excellent convalescent home was closed by the health board in the days of the Haughey health cuts in 1987. It was closed for no reason in the name of fiscal rectitude and when one considers now what went on at that time it makes the decision even more farcical and hard to understand.
As a result, the senior citizens of Tralee must now travel outside their own town and away from their relatives and friends to the facilities in Killarney. Their representatives have come to the conclusion that the health board executives are determined to ignore their pleas for a community hospital in Tralee. Mr. Sean Hurley, chief executive officer of the Southern Health Board, stated on 26 March that a central element of the board's philosophy of services for the older person is to provide services as close as possible to the older person's home, in other words, it was the health board's philosophy to provide facilities as near as possible to their homes for old people living in Tralee. I am asking the Minister of State for an indication that it is the Department's intention to urge the health board to provide this much needed facility.
