Pat's statement when visiting the A&E in Kilkenny

Labour’s plan for ending the chaos in A&E, which we are highlighting today, sets out a comprehensive and deliverable set of measures to improve conditions in A&E and across the health service. In drawing up our plan, we taken on board many of the lessons learned in St Lukes Hospital in Kilkenny. St Lukes is known throughout the health service as a hospital that works, and which has avoided the worst problems experienced in A&E units across the country. As I have seen on my previous visits to Kilkenny, there are a number of elements in making A&E departments function effectively, that we need to replicate.
As I have repeatedly emphasised, bed capacity is critical, both in terms of acute in-patient beds, and in respect of step-down facilities. That is why Labour is committed to building 2300 hospital beds and 1500 step-down beds.
We also need better organisation of A&E units and better liaison with local medical practitioners. A particular feature of St Luke’s is its Medical Assessment Unit, where patients can be seen, assessed and if necessary admitted to hospital without having to spend hours in A&E. Equally, it is important to have strong relationships with local GPs, to speed up admission to hospital based on a diagnosis made in the GP’s surgery. Too many people are spending too much time sitting in A&E, waiting to be seen by a less experienced doctor, when their GP has already assessed their condition.
Of course, we cannot exactly replicate the St Luke’s model in every hospital in every particular, but we can learn the lessons. Labour’s A&E plan sets out a series of measures to be put in place in A&E units across the country. These include medical assessment units, separate queues to treat minor injuries, better liaison with GPs and better facilities for GPs to diagnose problems before people go into hospital in the first instance.
We also need rigorous enforcement of cleaning protocols to end the phenomenon of dirty hospitals.
With these changes, and with the team-work approach which is so evident in St Luke’s, we can make a real difference to the A&E situation.

Labours Battle Bus visit's Carlow Kilkenny

Pat Rabbitte and the Labour Battle Bus will be visiting Thomastown and Kilkenny City on Monday morning. So if you around on Monday look out for us and call over to us for a quick chat.

http://www.labour.ie/manifesto/

A picture tells a thousand words-See the pledge videos here

The Labour Party has really adapted to this whole blogging stuff, and here you see how we're now using Youtube to spread our message. This is my first venture into putting video clips on my site, so here goes. The point of these two video clips is to higlight two of Pat Rabbitte and my pledges to you on the key things we will deliver if you elect us as part of the Government for change. To those of you without broadband in Kilkenny, my apologies if you can't access these.

Call the Day Bertie

We had Pat Rabbitte down to visit last Friday and I would like to thank everyone who we met on the canvas trial. It is always nice to get a warn sunny day to get out and meet people, however the question on every ones limps was when will the big day be.

So come on Bertie call the election and come out and face the voters.

Billboards every where

Just a quick foot note on the last blog entry. I am now told that the guys putting up the posters made another mistake. One of our billboard's with Jim and myself was put up in Cork City about two week's ago.

Goes to show you that we get our message around.

Any way Pat Rabbitte is visiting us tomorrow and I will blog an update over the weekend

Are you happy

I have included links to Pat's webcast explaining our commitments to the voters, log on a see for yourself on what Labour in government are committed to delivering.

http://www.makeachange.ie/index3.html Pat video
http://www.makeachange.ie/commit1.html Labour commitments

Health cover for kids

On Saturday morning, I had the privilege of addressing the Labour Party Conference and speaking on our commitment to provide health insurance to all children up to age 16. This is an intermediate step and ultimately, our goal is to ensure that everyone in the population is covered by health insurance.

Healthcare and its associated cost are a worry many hard working people in Ireland, particularly health cover for their children. As a councillor and from meeting people on the campaign trail, one of the subjects most raised with me is the health system. For so many, the expense of making sure their children get the best healthcare available can be huge. Even a fairly routine illness such as a chest infection can end up costing parents a significant sum, between the cost of a couple of visits to a GP and filling whatever prescriptions are required. When it comes to health and particularly children’s health, cost should not be a factor for families to worry about. Personally, I have come across cases where parents will neglect their own health care needs to make sure their kids get well looked after.

I am proud to be a member of Labour, bring this commitment to the electorate and offering them a real alternative.

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing/117017032186465.html

Education, Education, Education

On Monday we hosted a visit from Party Leader Pat Rabbitte to Kilkenny, where we took in visits to important sites around Kilkenny. I would like to thank my fellow Councillors Marie Fitzpatrick for hosting us at a stay in school programme in Kilkenny.

Marie outlined how such programme struggle to get proper funding and is constantly under resourced. The is amazing to see the work and commitment the staff in the centre have to make sure all young adults have a proper access to education, I firmly believe that investment is such centres is money well spend. The right for every person to access to education at a level that suits their needs is a fundamental right.

We in Labour are committed to invest in education, be it from pre-school to adult learning, life long learning is the future of our knowledge economy.

Our first commitment to change is:
Free pre- school education for one year for our children.
Labour in government will provide one year of free pre-school education, amounting to five half days per week per child. This is a major project and will require a great deal of effort - we believe it to be an investment in tomorrow rather than a cost today.
It is a major project, involving building new facilities, converting existing ones, and training and deploying a significant number of staff. We would see it as essential to work through existing providers, so as, as far as possible, to knit pre-school education into the broader childcare infrastructure.

More details on the commitment.

http://www.labour.ie/blog/archive/2007/01/15/commitment-for-change-1/

Officially Launched

Yet another busy week on the election trail, with Pat’s visit on Monday and my work as a local Councillor, I did not get much canvassing done this week. The weather and dark nights makes it hard to get to as many doors as you can during the summer.

Anyway the main news of this week was Pat Rabbitte officially launching my blog while in Kilkenny City. The blog is turning out to be a real success and I am getting a good reaction with voters able to keep up to date with my campaign.

As for next week, keep on canvassing and look for a new pair of shoes. You would be surprised how quick you can get through shoes on the canvass trail.

I have seen the light

On Monday, I toured Carlow College and got to meet some of the staff and students with my election running mate Jim Townsend and Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte. Carlow College really impressed me with the facilities and range of courses it has on offer. The college itself was founded in 1782 and has a long track record of being a corner stone of education in Carlow and the surrounding areas. In the last number of years the college has widened its course choice and now offers courses ranging from humanities to social studies.

It is great to see such an old and historical building full of life and having students fill its halls ways. The library within the college stands out as an impressive feature and is a credit to the staff and students. Particularly heartening was the number of mature students attending the college and reaffirms my belief in life long learning. Well done on all the good work to the staff and students and thank you for having me as a visitor.

As James Connolly once famously said “educate to liberate”.