Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last week I raised the issue of the endoscopy unit in Connolly Hospital and I received a message from a frustrated member of staff. It said that Connolly Hospital does not have enough beds for the population it is serving, the emergency department is under huge pressure all the time and the numbers being returned do not reflect the true situation. The hospital is using the line that procedures are being cancelled due to the winter initiative. If that is the case, then the winter initiative has been going on since last winter. Procedures are being outsourced to other hospitals in the group. However, there are still large numbers waiting and referrals are still coming. Let us see how long this is going on. In May 2018 the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, wrote about the exact same issue that we are talking about here today. The same issues are coming up year after year. There is a problem and it needs to be resolved.

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