I have as promised continued to follow up regarding the Urology Services at Waterford University Hospital where the waiting list is now 48-plus months. I asked Minister for Health Simon Harris what proposals he has to rectify the situation. He has referred my question to the HSE for reply. The HSE have forwarded the following reply.
“PQ *2541/17 “To ask the Minister for Health, in view of the fact that the Urology Outpatient Waiting list at University Hospital Waterford is now 48 months plus, the proposals he has to rectify the situation. [Seamus Healy].
The Health Service Executive has been requested to reply directly to you in the context of the above Parliamentary Question, which you submitted to the Minister for Health for response. I have examined the matter and the following outlines the position.
The total number of referrals to the Urology Service has increased by 90% since Urology commenced in University Hospital Waterford in 2015.
The management of the unprecedented demands faced on the Urology Service in University Hospital Waterford (UHW) is of high priority for UHW Executive Management Board and the Group Leadership Team of the South/South West Hospital Group SSWHG).
The clinical risk for the Urology Services is on the Corporate Risk Register and is rated high risk.
A number of possible solutions within South/South West Hospital Group are being explored including the possible availability of additional day case capacity in South Tipperary General Hospital STGH). It is planned that additional capacity for Urology day cases will become available in STGH in the 2nd quarter of 2017 following the opening of additional day case capacity in STGH.
UHW has also sought additional capacity within the SSWHG however the backlog of patients will require a special initiative.
In order to develop a sustainable solution UHW will continue to seek additional resources including Consultant Urologists and supporting services through the Estimates process. This will include additional cystoscopy and Outpatient Department sessions to ensure that the full presenting need will be met.
Following the approval and recruitment of additional Consultant Urologists, additional OPD, Operating Theatre and bed capacity will be required.”
I will continue to follow up and keep you updated.
Seamus Healy TD
Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services – 01 February 2017
February 2, 2017
Yesterday Deputy Healy continued to raise issues at the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services.
- Following up from previous meetings where he was informed that the metering programme would cease on 31 January 2017 I asked Irish Water for confirmation that the water metering programme had stopped and that contractors had been instructed to stop installing meters as of yesterday?
- He asked why Irish Water has no local offices or officials that the public can engage with directly?
- He asked why the public weren’t being notified re interruptions to water supply or planned maintenance by way of radio advertisements or leaflet drops?
- He also asked why Irish Water were cutting off supply to premises without notice or why they are cutting off supply at all?
He will as always keep you updated.
Deputy Healy raised with the Minister for Transport the issue of poor public transport, the continuous cancellation of services and the closure of routes for the people of Tipperary and indeed throughout Ireland.
Seamus Healy TD: I am sharing my time with Deputy Eamon Ryan. It is entirely proper that the Minister’s constituents and the people of Dublin have good quality public transport such as the DART, Luas and bus services, both in Dublin and from Dublin to all the major towns and cities throughout the country. The towns in my constituency such as Ballina, Nenagh, Roscrea, Templemore, Tipperary town, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Clonmel have substantially fewer transport rights and substandard bus and rail service. We have lost our bus routes in Carrick-on-Suir and the Minister and Iarnród Éireann want to close our rail lines through Ballybrophy, as well as the Limerick-Waterford line, where trains are cancelled almost on a daily basis and which is earmarked for closure by the Government. My constituents are entitled to the same adequate, good-quality transport service as are the people of Dublin. Far from cuts and the closure of routes, we need more services. The Minister should enact legislation to ensure more good quality transport services for all. The public, the elderly and social welfare recipients, wherever they are in the country, are entitled to a good quality public transport service at reasonable rates. Public transport services should not be subject to market forces as they are public services.
The current difficulties are as a result of Government policy going back at least as far as 2009, which has been continued under the Minister and the current Government. The subvention has been reduced from €44 million in 2009 to €33 million currently and the difficulty is anything but an industrial relations dispute. It is a policy issue that has been driven by the Minister and the Government. The difficult financial state of affairs of the company is largely as a result of the reduction in the subsidy and the free travel scheme, which is inadequately subvented by the Government.
The attack on Bus Éireann workers is a deliberate and vicious assault, not only on their pay but on their conditions. A 30% reduction in pay is absolutely unacceptable and must and will be opposed trenchantly by the workers. It is more than an attack on the workers at Bus Éireann, however. It is attack on all workers, whether they be in the public or the private sector, and it is the thin end of the wedge for privatisation. The company must and will be defeated and strike action, including a sympathetic strike, is the right and only response to this vicious attack on workers by the company.
Workers & Unemployed Action 