Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health David Cullinane TD this morning addressed the annual conference of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.

He spoke on the importance of enabling consultants and healthcare workers to do their jobs, and that politicians need to step up to the mark and deliver.

Teachta Cullinane said:

“Our goals – all of us here – are the same. We want to achieve a quality health service which enables healthcare professionals to do their jobs.

“It is our job to enable, and your job to deliver. To know what that means in practice, I want to step into the shoes of a consultant.

“Consultants are highly skilled, highly competitive, and highly ambitious people. They want to do a great job every day, every week, every month, every year.

“The work is non-stop, but they have the drive to match it.

“We need to resolve issues around pay inequality, fill the 500 vacant consultant posts, and enable consultants to do their job.

“That means freeing them up from doing paperwork, delivering a modern IT system, and allowing them work normal hours with a manageable caseload.

“We can only deliver for patients if we listen to the needs of healthcare professionals. Pay and conditions reform is long overdue.

“We also need to urgently deliver additional capacity in the health service – that is why we would provide funding for an additional 1,100 hospital beds next year and 100 ICU beds, with a plan to reach 580 ICU beds by 2022.”