The Independent Mayo TD, Dr Jerry Cowley, has called on the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to resign following his admission that he will not be able to meet the waiting list deadlines promised in the run-up to the last general election.
Speaking at the Irish College of General Practitioners annual meeting in Galway yesterday, Dr Cowley said the Minister's appearance on last Friday night's Late Late Show was an attempt to "defend the indefensible when a gentleman from the West showed the rheumatoid arthritis deformities he had developed because of a three-year wait" [to see a specialist].
He said the Minister could not claim he knew nothing about the need for rheumatology consultants in the West "as I have been highlighting it continuously.
"Minister Martin should resign on this matter alone, never mind the trail of broken promises," Dr Cowley said.
Calling on GPs to be advocates for their patients, he said: " 'Health apartheid' is unfortunately alive and well in the State and those affected feel the pain of the inequity. These are the marginalised people, the older and disabled and vulnerable population of Ireland.
"We GPs feel the pain also. This is why we have to be more than healers - why we have to be advocates also."
Referring to the alleged problem of older people, Dr Cowley said the mismanagement of old age has been going on for generations.
"Just because it's the system [to place older people in institutions] and it's always been done that way, does not mean its necessarily the correct way of doing things, or that it should not be changed."
He said that a Government-backed funding scheme for community developments such as St Brendan's Village in Mulranny, Co Mayo, would allow older people to live to the maximum of their ability in their own areas.
"This would make a lot more sense that the continued incarceration of older people in nursing homes and institutions where they do not want to be in the first place. It would provide step-down and convalescent facilities and would help free-up acute hospital beds," Dr Cowley said.
In a reference to the current debate about funding, he said "the terrible tragedy for people nowadays is that, in the health system, budgets are deciding the care given. Government policy is now literally deciding whether people live or die. This is unacceptable".