Statement on Behalf of Liam Coyne.
Liam Coyne says SD’s Health Service set for long term illness if old faces form new Government.
20th Feb 2016.
The Social Democrat’s Dublin South Central Candidate Liam Coyne has said FF, FG and Labour’s failure to deliver on health care will continue if one or all are returned to power.
“The people of Dublin South Central like everywhere else have experienced long hospital waiting lists for the most basic of procedures and the horrors of being stuck in trolleys on A&E wards for hours upon hours before being treated.”
“It is an issue that is constantly being raised on the doorsteps,” he said.
“We have all heard the various promises on health from Ministers Reilly, Varadkar and of course Micheal Martin when he was in Health that things would get better.“
“We all know they didn’t. The health service has some great people working in it but the system is broken and needs fixing”.
We are set for more of the same in health if the same old political parties are going to get back in,” Liam said.
“Under these guys getting sick has become a luxury,” he said.
“If people really want a change in the health service then they need to vote for the Social Democrats, ” he added.
Liam was commenting after recent opinion polls suggest that some or all of the traditional big three parties are likely to form the next government.
“We also have a lack of integrity in the Dept of Health with Ministers constantly looking for scapegoats to blame for their own failures,” said Liam.
“Of all those politicians who have served in Health only the Social Democrat’s Roisin Shortall stands out as she resigned both from Government and the Labour Party on a matter of principle. Where would you see such courage from candidates in the main parties?”
He says the SDs are dedicated to making straight forward, positive changes that will improve the nation’s ailing health services.
“Rome was not built in a day, we know that. We in the Social Democrats are not going to make promises that cannot be kept. We have plans that will make improvement to the health service aimed at making it better.”
“We have a plan to improve the health system that includes moving patients away from acute hospitals and into the community.” “We would reduce A&E pressure and waiting,” he said.
“To do this we would set up out of hours minor injury units in the community, improved diagnostic technology in hospitals and step-down facilities for patients that need medical supervision but not necessarily hospital care,” he said.
“We would also hire specialist staff required to do this, including a recruitment drive aimed at bringing doctors and nurses back to Ireland from abroad. ”The SDs also want to develop a smart ambulance service to minimise response times.
The current two-tier hospital service is to be phased out. This will be done by raising the standard of our public hospital services in terms of access and quality. The SDs would publish up-to-date Waiting List Data on-line so that patients can be referred to hospitals and consultants with the shortest waiting times;
The SDs also want to provide full medical cards for children who qualify for the care allowance, free GP-Care for all children, and improve medical card access for pensioners. The SDs also want to reduce what is spent on health service administration and take steps to reduce the costs of prescription drugs.
“We pay far too much on prescriptions compared to other countries, this is something the SDs intend to tackle head on” said Liam. The SDs are dedicated to creating a more open and transparent society and healthcare is no exception.
“We would open data that would allow opportunities to improve the service to be identified,” Liam said. Mental health and counselling services would be funded and built up around the country, with a particular focus on youngsters.
“We are also proposing to keep the tax base intact. If hard times come again and global markets fail us we won’t have to make the same sort of savage cuts to areas like health,” he said.
Ends