I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, for coming here this evening. I realise it has been extremely inconvenient for him and I know he is not the person primarily responsible for this matter. The person responsible was able to speak on the radio at 5.30 p.m. this evening but he did not regard it as important enough to come into this House of the Oireachtas. At least Deputy Treacy seems to accept the principle that what happens here is more important than what happens in the media and I thank him for that.
I am asking that the acute medical and surgical services provided by Naas General Hospital be maintained. I want to let the Minister for Health and the Government know the tremendous concern in County Kildare about the future of Naas General Hospital. The medical profession, patients and the public are worried that the badly needed services provided by the hospital will not be maintained, that it will be neglected and that, rather than providing the acute medical services which are essential, the hospital will be reduced to a geriatric unit, if it remains open at all.
To put the argument in context, I want to point out to the Minister that the population of County Kildare has risen by 70 per cent in the past two decades; the population rose by 11 per cent in the Naas area in 1986-91; the number of people in Celbridge increased by one third, in Maynooth by a quarter and by 3.5 per cent in Newbridge. We can say with confidence that new motorway development and rail commuter services will almost certainly lead to further significant population increases. This emphasises the argument in favour of adequate local medical services. Naas Hospital has a long and distinguished history of looking after the health needs of a wide community, and I can personally testify to that. I had to bring my son to the casualty department recently and I was impressed by the way the staff looked after him. The staff make good use of the meagre resources given to them.
Only one phase of a four phase development for the hospital proposed in 1986 has been completed. A letter written to me on 24 October of this year by the Minister for Health stated that he had received the report of the joint Department of Health/Eastern Health Board Review Group, established to examine the remaining stages of the development plan for Naas Hospital. The Minister said that the report was "under consideration in my Department". I and those concerned with the future of Naas Hospital now want to know what the report says and what has been the result of the consideration given to it by the Department. Space is at a premium in the hospital, patients have to be moved about frequently, the situation is completely unsatisfactory and, as I said, it is a tribute to the staff that they can cope with the problem.
I am pleased to learn that beds have been reopened in the hospital and I am also glad that a part-time geriatrician has been appointed to the hospital, but this is against a background of an earlier decision to appoint a full-time consultant physician with an interest in rheumatology, an appointment which was not made. The concern in the light of all this is that the acute medical and surgical services being provided by Naas Hospital may be transferred elsewhere, for example to Tallaght or to the main Dublin teaching hospitals. I want the Minister's assurance this evening that these services will be fully maintained at Naas.
The Minister for Health, his Department and the Eastern Health Board will be aware of the concern being expressed about the future of Naas Hospital which has been communicated to him and the other bodies by the Kildare faculty of the Irish College of General Practitioners and others. The faculty has expressed the view that any downgrading of the services "would marginalise Kildare and would have serious consequences for the quality of health care delivery in this area." People in Kildare need to be assured about the future of their hospital. Therefore, I am asking the Minister to confirm that the services at Naas Hospital, especially the acute medical and surgical services, will be increased commensurate with the increase in population and that no attempt will be made to centralise these services and transfer them to Tallaght or elsewhere.
