Health Crisis Out Of Control

Once again it is necessary to highlight the deplorable state of the health services being offered to the people of the country and especially to the people of the midlands and west. I take no pleasure in complaining about this once again but in the past two weeks alone we have had the situation with regard to the Rosalie unit and the chronic understaffing of the mental health service in this region. We have had more problems with the ambulance service and the situation at the Loughglynn base which is not yet operational. We have had a public protest outside St Patricks Hospital in Carrick on Shannon because of under staffing and this week and we hear that elective surgery at University Hospital Galway has been cancelled and that more cancellations are on the way because of overcrowding. Now today we learn that hundreds of appointments for outpatients clinics in Merlin Park Hospital Galway have been deferred for a number of months. The situation with the heath service seems to be lurching from one disaster to another as the problems pile up. Minister Leo Varadkar, who had an opinion on everything until he was appointed to his current portfolio, seems to have done a disappearing act in recent weeks, and as I said a couple of weeks ago, he is being given a free pass from the national media for some unknown reason in terms of any critisism. I am calling on Minister Varadkar, Minister for state Kathleen Lynch and the HSE to make an immediate statement on all of these very serious issues and I am calling on the Minister to stand up and take responsibility for this disastrous situation which is spiralling out of control with every passing week.