I welcome this debate on Beaumont Hospital which is located in the heart of my constituency, Dublin North Central. It is appropriate that we are discussing this serious issue in the week of the publication of the Book of Estimates. I was elected on a strong health and disability platform and I intend to develop this agenda further and push it strongly. It is a national scandal that after seven years of an economic boom and a lot of hot air from the Government parties Beaumont Hospital still has roofs and windows leaking, a shortage of beds, cancer operations cancelled, inadequate intensive care services, no proper facilities for doctors, one toilet for 40 male doctors and 24 more beds needed for seriously ill patients.
I compliment Dr. David Hickey, director of the kidney and pancreas transplant unit, for his honest, open and genuine views on the conditions in the hospital. We need people of his ability, integrity and calibre working in our health services. He cares passionately about the quality of the health service and has the vision to take the broader view of society and to be concerned about the Third World. He is a radical caring and progressive person, both at home and abroad. We need voices like his to put down a marker to people who appear to think they are running a business rather than a country, society or hospital.
As I said before about Beaumont, despite the major flaws, I am particularly proud of the staff and the excellent professional job done for their patients. Over the last seven years, we had the opportunity with all our extra finances and resources to do something sensible and radical about Beaumont and other hospitals, such as Temple Street Children's Hospital. Despite all the hype and the so-called 6% increase in health spending, which is a joke given health inflation is running at 10%, in Beaumont there was only one doctor to see the 6,000 diabetics who attended the hospital last year. Is this Government living in the real world? We are supposed to have 24 beds for transplant patients but have only six which is a disaster and disgrace. Many people working at the coalface are now concerned that there will be an exodus of doctors and nurses from the public health system, which is a nightmare situation and a major crisis waiting to happen unless we act now.
The Minister's defence of his colleague, the Minister for Finance, during the debate on the Estimates shows the direction in which the Government is going and it does not look good for Beaumont and the rest of the health services. I agree that tough decisions must be made, but why do we distort that word, so that it means closing beds and hammering the sick? The real tough decision would be to go after the tax dodgers and the €987 million in uncollected taxes instead of cutting health services. He must take the tough decisions in the patients' interest.
The Minister should also listen carefully to the views of the technical group, which the Minister of State would have heard earlier with the intervention of Deputy Twomey. We have quality people in the technical group with a medical background who can give good advice on running of a proper health service.
I welcome the debate on Beaumont and urge the Minister to do everything in his power to ensure Beaumont gets the maximum resources and finance to provide a top quality health service for the people of the north side of Dublin and the country as a whole.