Emergency Department trolley crisis – Cost €86.28m

Emergency Department (ED) services have been at crisis point for some time, as regularly highlighted by the ‘Trolley Watch’ survey carried out by the Irish nurses and Midwives Organisation. The trolley crisis is not just an Ed crisis but a symptom of the malaise that is endemic across the wider health system. It is primarily due to a lack of capacity resulting from the chronic failure of government to provide adequate funding to the public health system. There are insufficient staff and beds in the acute hospital system; insufficient exit packages; and insufficient nursing home beds or home care options. Sinn Féin is prioritising the provision of an additional 500 nurses to tackle the crisis in the Eds themselves and to open further beds across the system. We would also increase the number of Registered nurse Prescribers. And in developing sustainable solutions to the issue of delayed discharges we have provided for additional nursing home beds, home help hours and home care packages.

Waiting times crisis - Cost €55.83m

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association has highlighted the real cost to the health system of agency consultants, which work out at twice the price of a long-serving permanent consultant and three times the cost of a new consultant. Sinn Féin has prioritised the recruitment of an additional 250 hospital consultants and medical secretaries for 2016. These posts are vital if we are to tackle shamefully long waiting times for consultations and treatments.

Increase maternity resources - Cost €15.16m

Ireland had the highest per capita birth rate of all 28 member countries of the Eu in 2014. despite this, maternity care in Ireland has been left in crisis, with shortages of staff in hospitals across the state. Our maternity services are severely understaffed, lacking both midwives and obstetricians. Sinn Féin would recruit an additional 250 midwives, and obstetricians and gynaecologists from our new consultant intake for 2016.

Increase investment in mental health services - Cost €29.16m

Year after year the Government has failed to deliver on its mental health commitments. despite a greater need for mental health services, there are 1,200 fewer mental health staff now than there were in 2006. Sinn Féin believes that the ‘A Vision for Change’ strategy for mental health must be implemented. We intend to address staffing-level shortcomings with a particular focus on staffing Child and Adolescent Mental Health teams, the provision of suicide critical assessment nurses and mental health intellectual disability posts and increasing access to the Counselling in Primary Care service.

Increase funding to disability services - Cost €45.89m

565,000 people in this state reported having various forms of disability in the last census. Disability is a societal issue, affecting people of all ages and their families, directly and indirectly. despite disability having being proclaimed as a focus for the Government, the recession and austerity imposed has seen a reduction in services for those with disabilities in the order of 14-16%. Sinn Féin’s budget proposals provide for between 500 and 600 occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, and psychologists, and additional funding for personal assistant hours and community based neuro-rehabilitation teams and transitional services.

Medical Card Reform - Cost €21.29m

Some of our sickest and most vulnerable citizens continue to go without medical cards. With the exception of childhood cancer, the time- consuming and onerous financial audit of the entire household remains the sole criteria upon which eligibility for a medical card is based. This is despite promises by government to build compassion into the system. Our proposals include providing an automatic medical card for children with significant medical needs arising from serious illness or disability. Further provisions for the extension of free GP visits to the remainder of the population, commencing with lower income households and for the expansion of GP capacity to facilitate this roll-out will be included in an upcoming Health Policy document. We are now providing for an initial increase in the number of GPs in training.

Address high cost of prescription charges and medicines - Cost €33.9m

The overwhelming body of evidence shows that charges for drugs can lead to higher costs on the health budget in the medium to longer term, not to mention the serious strain and ill effects they can have on the health of those who need medications. As a first step in phasing them out, we would reduce the charge per prescription by 50c as well as lowering the drug Payment Scheme monthly limit from €144 to €132.

Increase investment in dental care - Cost €81.1m

During the recession there has been a drastic scaling back across the three main fields of public-funded dental provision. As with other frontline services the recruitment moratorium has had a negative effect on frontline dental services, and waiting lists have become shamefully long. We would provide an additional 80 dentists, including orthodontists, and 120 dental nurses, expand orthodontic treatment for children, extend the annual dental check-up, and restore funding for maintenance treatments.

Increase emergency ambulance cover - Cost €7.8m

Many communities across the country experience long and dangerous delays waiting for ambulances. HIQA sets the targets in which 80 per cent of life-threatening cardiac or respiratory emergency calls for emergency assistance are supposed to be dealt with within 8 minutes. Last year just 26.6% of such calls were responded to within this time. In rural areas just 6.6% of calls were responded to within the eight-minute target time. We would increase emergency ambulance cover by providing two additional ambulances, including personnel (88), for each of the four HSE regions.

Increase funding for the national Drugs strategy - Cost €5.76m

Problem drug use is a public health issue. In the nine years from 2004 to 2012 problem drug use played a role in the deaths of 5,289 people. That’s more than one death every single day. But despite the threat to the lives of so many, predominantly young men, funding for the health services vitally needed to stabilise and save these lives has been severely cut. We would increase funding for delivery of the national drugs Strategy.

Additional funding to strengthen HIQA’s role - Cost €630,000

HIQA has a varied and challenging workload in setting standards across the health sphere and monitoring whether they are adhered to, in hospital, residential homes, child care settings and technology relating to health care. HIQA needs to be adequately supported and resourced. We make an initial provision for additional staff.

Increase funding to Healthy Ireland - Cost €200,000

There are currently only five staff in the department of Health assigned to work in the Health and Wellbeing Programme, which is coordinating Healthy Ireland. Providing adequate funding for Healthy Ireland will help to ensure that citizens young and old are encouraged to achieve as high a level of health and wellbeing as possible.