‘Sense of loss of hope around healthcare’, say Soc Dems at Cork event

Social Democrats founder and Ireland’s longest serving female TD Roisin Shortall was in Cork yesterday, at an event in the Quay Co-op to set out the party’s vision for healthcare.

Speaking at the event, Cork South Central general election candidate councillor Pádraig Rice said: “From people I’ve spoken to, there’s a sense of a loss of hope around healthcare, people feel like things are not getting better quickly enough.

He said: “Ireland is an outlier in Europe in not providing universal healthcare, we need a healthcare system based on need and not ability to pay. When you’re sick, you shouldn’t have to pay €60 to see a GP, face a long waiting list or find yourself or a loved one on a hospital trolley.”

Mr Rice explained that there are 85,000 people on hospital waiting lists in Cork at the moment, and 1,400 were treated on trolleys in Cork hospitals last month, with the majority of these in CUH which was Ireland’s second most overcrowded hospital.

Ms Shortall, the party’s healthcare spokesperson, added that in CHO4, the healthcare region which covers Cork and Kerry, there are 45,000 waiting for community services, including 6,000 for speech and language therapy and 6,000 waiting for primary care psychology — the majority of whom are children.

“Every month, every year, waiting on services for a child a year is a year lost to their childhood, it’s holding them back (from) making progress in school and socially,” she said.

Ms Shorthall said the Social Democrats are calling for all parties to commit fully to implementing Sláintecare over the course of the next Government. She said: “We’re seven years into what was meant to be a 10-year plan and we’re not even halfway there.”

The Social Democrats are calling for five new pieces of legislation, including a legal entitlement to universal healthcare, limits on length of waiting lists, accountability for senior healthcare staff, a new GP contract, and a statutory right to home care.

“People are being funnelled into nursing homes, we have a legal entitlement to nursing home care but most people’s preference and where they do best is to stay at home, but if they can’t afford home care, they have to go to nursing homes.”

They also hope to see money for Sláintecare set aside at the start of the budget similar to what is done for the National Development Plan, public pay agreement funds, and a halting to privatisation of health and social care.

Ms Shortall told The Echo that the current Pay and Numbers strategy which has seen healthcare staff protesting outside CUH and St Finbarr’s in recent weeks was “a recruitment embargo by another name”.

“2,000 vacancies across the health service were lost — there is a major issue in nursing particularly, but also access to community services. Having a proper workforce plan would make a big difference,” she said.