Following last night’s RTÉ Investigates programme on those living on hospital waiting lists, Enda Kenny is likely to face some tough questions from the opposition benches during Leaders’ Questions in Leinster House.
Micheál Martin brings up the RTÉ Investigates programme last night.
He says the programme about life on hospital waiting lists revealed the “deep suffering” of people across the country.
The programme showed the impact the lack of funding and lack of strategy to reduce lists can cause.
“We saw the human stories behind the figures,” he says.
Martin said the most harrowing part of the programme was seeing how children with scoliosis were treated.
He said it is interesting how the National Treatment Purchase Fund was effectively “mothballed” under James Reilly, he says.
“I found it difficult to watch, this programme,” says Enda Kenny.
“The stories speak for themselves.
“This is 2017 and no one wants to see a situation like this.”
Enda Kenny says the talk that there is an attempt to cover up the figures is not true. He says the waiting lists have always been correlated in that way.
The Taoiseach says the Health Minister Simon Harris is meeting with those in the NTPF is happening today and the use of the private sector to deal with scoliosis patients will be looked at.
“This is not something we can stand over,” said the Taoiseach.
“Clearly, this is something the minister was upset himself about,” he adds.
Taoiseach says 44 scoliosis cases were outsourced to the private sector.
Martin says they all should have been done. He says everything should have been done to get surgery for the patients.
No one should be waiting any longer in chronic pain.
He asks Kenny why the NTPF was rolled back. He says his party have never got an answer to that.
Martin says those patients need to be seen to now, and then the health minister should be looking at the wider issue of how to solve the problem.
Kenny says that is what Minister Harris is going to do.
He says the focus, quite rightly, is on the cases of scoliosis.
The Taoiseach said it will be looked at how to get the theatre opened and staffed.
Gerry Adams says there is a “complete lack of accountability”.
He says he finds it difficult to believe that the minister did not know that these people were being left languishing on the lists.
Adams says TDs constantly make representations on behalf of patients to help them.
He calls for the minister to meet with his party’s health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly to discuss some of her ideas.
Enda Kenny says what is needed is a health system that does not change from month to month.
The new orthopedic unit was built in Crumlin Hospital in 2015 and new staff are being hired.
On average there are an additional 250 patients for spinal surgery every year.
He says 133 operations on scoliosis patients were carried out in 2016, with 44 being carried out by the private sector.
Adams says it is not an accident that the health service is in constant crisis.
He says Fine Gael are against a public health service, and for a two-tiered system.
Kenny says Adams is completely “off the mark” with that statement.
Brendan Howlin is up next.
He says the individual stories shown last night were harrowing.
Labour’s Alan Kelly is calling for a probe into how the hospital waiting lists are drawn up.
Howlin says short term fixes will not solve the problems facing the health service.
We also learn that the cost of national children’s hospital has spiralled by 50%.
This was first highlighted last November by Independent TD Mattie McGrath:
“Why have costs escalated by such an extent in two years?”
He wants to know where the €500 million will come from?
Kenny says this is a building that will now be finished until 2021, says the Taoiseach.
He says a very significant, experienced committee will look after the fixed cost contract.
Michael Lowry is now talking. He says he found last night’s programme very “disturbing”.
He says he is “delighted” with the Taoiseach’s words today that it will be dealt with.
He says “it takes a TV programme to get action”. Lowry says he and other elected members have been raising the issues featured in last night’s programme on a regular basis.
He wants to talk about acute beds in his Tipperary constituency.
Lowry says Clonmel is like a “battlezone”. “There is no dignity in terms of patient care.”
The TD says there are 150 acute beds for 100,000 people in Tipperary.
“My view is that the minister accessible .. and approachable, but he needs the support of government,” says Lowry.
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