Ahern: ‘buck stops here’ on A&E crisis

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern said he was appalled to hear last year of patients waiting on trolleys in hospital corridors or unable to get blankets at a time when the Government annual health budget was €13 billion.

However, Mr Ahern argued the Government has moved to remedy the problem areas in the health services, especially the crisis situation in accident and emergency departments.

He accepted that not all the problems in the health services would be resolved between now and the General Election, expected in nine months time.

Mr Ahern was speaking on RTÉ yesterday morning ahead of the last day of the parliamentary party meeting in Westport, which focused on health services.

Maureen Lynott, the special advisor to the Health Services Executive, told the party’s TDs and Senators that the Executive was using a similar approach to finding a focused approach to A&E bottlenecks as had been used by the National Treatment Purchase Fund to reduce waiting list for specialist treatments from an average of three years to between two-to-three months.

Several of the party’s leading figures including Finance Minister Brian Cowen and Children’s Minister Brian Lenihan a all separately echoed Mr Ahern’s views that all the problems afflicting the health services would not be solved within nine months.

Mr Ahern also dismissed perceptions that Fianna Fáil’s prospects for the election might be damaged by Progressive Democrats ministers being in charge of the key departments over which the election will be fought — health and justice.

Reiterating his view that no minister has a personal fiefdom, he said: “The buck stops here. You are talking to the person who takes responsibility for the entire performance of my Cabinet and I will do that.”