Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the point. I echo the Taoiseach's words yesterday. What staff and patients at University Hospital Limerick want to know is what are we going to do about it. I cannot remember when, but I visited Limerick a couple of months ago, I visited CervicalCheck staff. I called into the hospital where I saw the significant progress being made in the development of the 60-bed ward block. The mid-west has been really badly treated in the reconfiguration agenda which I do not intend to reopen. I see why it was decided to centralise several services in University Hospital Limerick, but it was never given the beds required. I see the clinical director of the hospital, Dr. Gerry Burke, regularly highlighting the inequity in bed numbers. I will reverse that trend and the Deputy will be pleased to know that it is not just talk from me. If she visits University Hospital Limerick, as I know she does, she will see that work on the 60-bed ward block is well under way. In this Oireachtas I have been under significant political pressure from Senator Kieran O'Donnell, Deputy Kelly and others from the mid-west to move ahead and do something quickly. We went ahead with the 60-bed modular ward block.

I also see in the figures I have been given that about 68 additional staff have been hired in Limerick in the last four weeks, including 48 in nursing. The chief executive may wish to add to this, but we are genuinely putting extra staff and beds in place. As to what we can do right now, I have called a meeting tomorrow on the position at University Hospital Limerick and in the mid-west. I expect people to come from the hospital, but I also expect to meet the HSE and the Department. One of the issues about which I heard from hospital management when I visited and about which I have heard from Oireachtas colleagues is that the number of delayed discharges from the hospital is much higher than it used to be. Traditionally, there would have been about eight, but that number has now reached 47 or 48.

I have been talking to the chief executive about increasing funding for transitional care services in the region. I offer my apologies to Deputy Harty, as I should have mentioned the representations he has made in that regard, but I was looking in his direction. We will also be making provision for winter planning in budget 2020 to be announced next Tuesday. In the short term my message to people in Limerick is that more beds are coming. One can see in looking out the window that they are under construction. Also, there are 68 more staff members working in the hospital than there were five weeks ago. In the immediate term I want to see what we can do to improve social care services to help to decongest the hospital.