Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tá fáilte romhat, a Edwin. I am not used to seeing you in this setting, but you are very welcome. I am sure we all agree on that.

Over the last few days people have listened in horror to the testimony presented at the inquest into the death of 16-year-old Aoife Johnston. Aoife died in University Hospital Limerick on 17 December 2022. The inquest is ongoing and we await its verdict. We have heard that on that fateful night in 2022 when Aoife presented to the emergency department it was under enormous sustained pressure. The senior house officer on duty that night has said that nursing staff were "overwhelmed" with patients seeking treatment. She said that staff were left in an "impossible situation" due to the severity of the overcrowding. Staff shortages were a huge issue and the doctor said that the emergency department was "not a safe environment" for patients. Aoife had presented with suspected sepsis, so time was of the essence, but she was left waiting for 13 hours, lying across two chairs as a makeshift bed, before eventually being seen by a doctor. There was not even a trolley available for her. Aoife’s heartbroken parents Carol and James called out for help as their daughter deteriorated, but have said that there was no help. Carol said “we watched our daughter die – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone”.

I raise Aoife’s case because it speaks, in the most heartbreaking way, to the depths of the crisis at University Hospital Limerick. The chaos in the emergency department that Aoife and her family faced that night is what faces patients and staff all the time. The hospital’s full overcrowding alert was enacted every other day last year. We should let that sink in for a moment. This is a hospital operating at permanent surge capacity and the surge is every single day. UHL is in a constant state of emergency because it simply does not have the level of staff or beds it needs to deal with demand. The result is chronic overcrowding, persistently high trolley counts and people denied healthcare with thousands of appointments cancelled every month. The hospital is short 200 vital staff. The panels are in place but staff cannot be recruited because of the Government’s embargo. The blocking of recruitment when a hospital is on its knees just beggars belief. To get ahead of this crisis, the hospital also needs 288 additional beds and it needs them to be delivered rapidly. While the Taoiseach’s Government has announced some limited measures, they fall far short of what is required and the reality now is that staff, patients and the public in general feel very unsafe. Is mór an chailliúint í Aoife Johnston. Thug a bás léargas ar na fíorchontúirtí a bhaineann le róphlódú in Ospidéal na hOllscoile, Luimneach. Tá fíorathrú ag teastáil ó mhuintir an mheániarthair maidir le cúram sláinte.

This cannot go on. The people of Limerick and the mid-west are at the end of their tether with the constant crisis in their hospital. They are screaming out for action and they believe the Government is not listening. They want the Government to effectively address the crisis with speed and purpose. Here is what the Taoiseach's Government must do: firstly, it must end its dangerous recruitment embargo so that University Hospital Limerick has the staff it needs to meet demand; secondly, it must deliver the additional beds the hospital needs with urgency to tackle overcrowding; and thirdly and importantly, it must invest ambitiously in local out-of-hours community health services to relieve pressure on the emergency department. These three steps would transform the situation. Will the Taoiseach take them?

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