Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

One of my reasons for requesting the meeting today was because we are all very aware of the stress and distress of the patients from the media reports.

I understood that the purpose of today's meeting was to restore confidence. I do not have that confidence. I am reading the statement signed by the witnesses and the Cystic Fibrosis Association that states clearly: "1-2 in-patient rooms in the Nutley Wing will be kept available at all times for emergency admissions. In circumstances where the emergency admission rooms have already been utilised and all the other in patient rooms in the Nutley Wing are occupied, patients with Cystic Fibrosis will be accommodated elsewhere in clinically appropriate single rooms until such time as a room becomes available in the Nutley Wing and then the patient will be transferred there as a priority." I am not hearing that today. In his budget statement last week the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, said 34 beds is 34 beds. That is not what we are hearing.
Chairman:I thank the Senator.
Senator Katherine Zappone:I also appreciated the response but as Senator Crown said, the agreements do not clearly state or guarantee the 34 beds. My explicit question was if there were there times when the agreements made could not be kept.
Professor Charles Gallagher:There are several interrelated questions. I emphasise that much has been done to improve things. I will try to deal with the questions in order as briefly as I can. In response to Senator Zappone there definitely were times when we did not have one or two beds available in the past month. There is no doubt about that. I have a list of those instances.

In answer to Senator Crown's two questions, the second was about people going back to other areas. We have not felt under pressure. A total of 80% of the patients in St. Vincent's Hospital CF unit are from our catchment area. The remaining 20% are patients with a very complex disease who come to us from other parts of Ireland who need to be treated here. Those patients we treated in other centres are already being treated in those centres. We audit this every month. The patients who come into St. Vincent's CF centre now all need to be there because of a catchment area or because of a disease severity and that is that.