Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to go back to health and prevention. I do not like to be parochial about anything but I will use the example of Galway to generalise. I thank the Chair and the secretariat of the Committee of Public Accounts. I sought all the external reviews in University Hospital Galway, UHG, over a ten-year period. The purpose of that was to establish the number carried out, the recommendations, the costs and the changes that could be made. This responsibility fully falls on Mr. Lynch. We learned from the language he has used.

An extraordinary letter came back. I have mentioned it loads of times. It stated that UHG did not have a system to record the number and cost of all external reviews. That letter was dated 5 November. On 18 December, it was followed by another, advising following a further search that the hospital did not have an electronic system to record the number and associated cost of all external reviews and investigations. Finally, on 25 April, the committee found out that a manual search showed there were 13 external reviews concerning the hospital between 2010 and 2018, at a cost of €246,883. That seems like good value for money. I will follow up on that. A figure of 13 external reviews is not a great answer. It does not show trust.

Secondly, I refer to a visit to the hospital. I have the greatest respect for public nursing and public medicine. I refer particularly to units five and six of Merlin Park University Hospital. Again, this concerns management pre-empting and learning from claims. I refer to a report of a visit by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, in December and January. I will not quote it because my time is limited. During the inspection, the inspectorate sought written assurance that the water supply was safe for use, but this was not provided. I remind witnesses that this is a hospital. The report refers to inadequate signage relating to water. I will not go into it. I have the greatest respect for both units. Like other members, I have made so many representations to get people in there. I have only mentioned one of the factors that have been highlighted. There are many more. It is no reflection on the staff; it is a reflection on management. It seems to have failed to act.

Separate to that is another file I have mentioned many times. This is a file of letters from consultants who have written to us about the extraordinarily long waiting list. This is to do with money, not health. It is to do with the cost to the public purse that eventually arises when people are forced to sue or when people die prematurely and legal actions result. One correspondent told us that it is intolerable and that it is a regional crisis too big for management to address. I can hand any of this to the witnesses. The correspondent describes a catastrophic waiting list of almost 2,000 patients, which has been accumulating since the shortfall in infrastructure. That is not to mention the pain and suffering caused.

I will stick with that bad word, "money". People end up suffering more, which on top of all their pain and suffering costs the State more in the end, and we end up facing cases. I refer to risk assessment, acting on risk and identifying the problems on the ground. Capacity is the first item on the risk register for this hospital.