“Senior Management at the HSE from Tony O’Brien (Director General) down should be considering their positions in the wake of the latest health crisis in our A and E Departments and also after the latest report that shows that Ambulance response times remain unacceptable particularly in this region” That’s the blunt view of Roscommon-Galway Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice.
Commenting on the crisis, which has reached record levels in recent days, Michael Fitzmaurice said “These people in the management positions in the HSE have not delivered on a consistent basis and if they were working in the private sector they would have been removed a long time ago. There isn’t much point criticising the Minister when the people who are running the health service are not able to deliver. There must be new work practices put in place in the HSE whereby if managers are not delivering then they are replaced by someone who can do the job properly” he added.
“We see year after year the numbers of people waiting on trolleys getting bigger and bigger, various Ministers have announced initiative after initiative yet the situation gets worse. We have record numbers on trolleys this week again and now we have a report that tells us that the ambulance response times in the Galway/Mayo/Roscommon area show that in only 55% of cases that the standard times were met. It’s about time we called a spade a spade and demanded that the people in HSE management, who are running our health service and who are getting well paid, do their jobs properly. The situation as it exists just cannot continue” he concluded.