Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for selecting this item. I also thank the Minister for Defence, Deputy Smith, for taking the matter. I regret the fact that neither the
Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Cowen, nor his Minister of State is available.
The Western Health board has had to introduce severe and cruel cutbacks in nursing supplies in County Galway. This was done without consultation or agreement with the people charged with the responsibility of delivering that service to the community — the public health nurses and carers in their homes.
Not long ago, an Opposition spokesperson for health stood beside huge hoardings throughout the country declaring that health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped. Today he is the Minister for Health and Children, yet basic services, such as care for the elderly in their own homes or in nursing homes, are being denied to the very same people. Is it fair and will the Minister allow this situation to continue? For example, the carers of an 18 year old girl — handicapped since birth, epileptic, suffering from severe excema and totally incontinent — have been told that there is a 50 per cent cutback in incontinence wear, availability has been reduced to five pads per day.
Changes have taken place in the delivery of a modern caring health service to the community. High technology equipment, such as hoists and hi-lo beds, must be provided for people caring for their loved ones in their homes or in public health nursing homes. There is a 13 months waiting list for these basic items in the Western Health Board area. Basic medical supplies are not available in some district nursing care areas. Nurses are working in difficult, if not impossible, conditions to maintain proper standards. The chronically sick, the old and the handicapped are suffering as a result. Will our health services deny people bandages for their wounds or the incapacitated their wheelchairs? People in County Galway want their parents, the aged and the handicapped to live with dignity in their homes.
I call on the Minister to provide adequate funding to the Western Health Board to restore and develop basic public health services in County Galway. Must we neglect this section in our society at a time of economic boom? I ask the Minister to act now to alleviate the hardship of people in greatest need.