Most people are perplexed that in this Celtic tiger economy there has been such a breakdown in our health services. There are waiting lists for all sorts of illnesses, and we hear of delays even where patients require emergency operations.
One of the most extraordinarily long lists is in relation to orthodontic treatment in the Dublin area. I raise on the Adjournment as a last resort a case I want to bring to the attention of the House. I have fought for more than two years to get the young lady in question the dental treatment that she has been diagnosed as needing for more than seven and a half years. When the young lady was ten, the dental service attending the primary school in which she was a pupil indicated that she needed orthodontic treatment, and she was put on a list. When she was 13 or 14 I met her mother on a walkabout in the area in which she lives, Drumcondra, Dublin 9, which is the Taoiseach's constituency, as it is mine. This young lady's parents have been to the Taoiseach and to others in the effort to get dental treatment for her. It took me the best part of a year to get her an appointment to be assessed, and that assessment was done two years ago. Her parents contacted me again to thank me for getting the assessment and said they had been given to understand that their daughter would have been treated by now. I was amazed to hear that she had not been treated.
I have had the most extraordinary difficulty in tracking down who in the health board was responsible for this service, but it appears nobody is because of the mess the Government has made of the health boards in the Dublin region. Even when there was only one health board, the Eastern Health Board, it was difficult to get information. The reorganisation into an Eastern Regional Health Authority and three area health boards, has given rise to the most convoluted problems even in tracking down somebody to talk to. That is especially true if the person happens to live in one health board and the service they seek is provided in another health board area.
I have been in touch with the Eastern Regional Health Authority, the Northern Area Health Board, and the Eastern Regional Health Board. I have been in touch with health centres and dental headquarters, with the dental service in St. James's Hospital, which it took me two weeks to get through to on the telephone. I have been misled several times. I have been told to ring Roselawn Health Centre, St. James's Hospital, and the headquarters of the Northern Area Health Board in Swords.
After weeks of effort on my part as a Dáil Deputy, I eventually spoke to the deputy chief executive. One can only imagine the difficulties ordinary citizens must have. After all that effort, I was told by a senior person in the dental service at St. James's that the health board might pay most of the cost. Then I got some data on it, to the effect that a scheme might be introduced whereby the patient would pay 50% of the cost. I understand that scheme is not yet in operation. In any event my constituent cannot afford it. I received a letter from the deputy chief executive of the Northern Area Health Board in the past few weeks – seven and a half years after my constituent was first diagnosed – informing me that it will be another six months before it will be possible to say when she can have an appointment and, at that stage, she might be told she can have an appointment in 2002 or in 2003 or in 2004. This is a disgrace and I want the Minister to account to this House and tell me when this girl and others like her will get their treatment.
