Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to first acknowledge the positive progress with regard to the Covid-19 figures, the changes that have been made and the increase in capacity in respect of testing but I want to raise a couple of capital projects with the Minister. In February 2017, the new emergency department, ED, was confirmed for University Hospital Galway, UHG. Funding was confirmed for the design phase of a new ED at this time. It was to be prioritised in the mid-term review of the capital plan. It was included in Project Ireland 2040. In September 2018, when the then Minister, Deputy Harris, visited Galway, we were told that the ED planning application was to be lodged before Christmas of that year. It was then delayed due to this options appraisal in regard to the best use of UHG and Merlin Park lands. It was then announced that the planning permission would proceed prior to the options appraisal. That did not happen. We were then told the project team were requested to include the design of maternity and paediatric services, which is welcome, but the situation is continuing and an application for planning permission has not been lodged.

I am concerned that there are some in the Saolta group who want to delay the commencement of the ED because they want to move all services from UHG out to Merlin Park, which would be a €3 billion project. They say the earliest that could start would be in ten years' time and that it will take ten years to build. We would be talking about the end of 2040. My concern is that the emergency department is being delayed. In the meantime, staff and patients have to endure very difficult conditions in the emergency department in Galway. I ask the Minister to indicate when the design for an emergency department will be complete and when an application for planning permission will be lodged?

I will ask my second question and then give the Minister time to answer both. This day one year ago, 4 November 2019, I attended a public meeting attended by Professor Paul Donnellan on oncology services, again in UHG. I will take about a minute to read the testimony of a cancer patient who, thankfully, is a cancer survivor. This is from a few years ago:

I was diagnosed with colon cancer (Stage 3+) and had surgery in Galway. I had felt unwell for a couple of months and was diagnosed by colonoscopy and following the surgery I was referred to a consultant oncologist who works both in GUH and the Galway Clinic.

My first meeting with my Oncologist was scheduled for GUH, 3 weeks post-surgery. I arrived at the hospital with my wife where we were directed to a waiting room which was completely overcrowded with 60 people. There was no seats available and I took my place along the wall with many other patients and their family members. From listening to accounts and conversations these patients had come from all over the west and north west. Many were elderly and obviously quite ill.

Over the next 90 minutes some were called and others arrived, so I eventually got a seat. The conditions were awful with so many vulnerable, ill people packed into a completely inadequate space in a dreary, poorly maintained building. It would be depressing on any day but following what I had endured it was almost unbearable. Worse was to follow.

I was eventually called and went upstairs to yet another waiting room which was so small and so overcrowded I couldn’t even enter. My wife and I and other patients stood in the narrow corridor, leaning against the wall for another 40 minutes until I was called. I met with my Oncologist on that day for the first time and following my 2½ hour wait – most of it standing up – he went through my diagnosis and prognosis. We decided on a programme of chemotherapy which he said I could receive in GUH or the Galway Clinic. I told him that I never wanted to see GUH again and it was a disgrace what patients have to put up with. Following chemotherapy, I have made a full recovery for which I’m very grateful but the day in GUH was, without doubt the worst of my cancer experience.

There has been no progress in the last year and the staff on the day care ward in the medical oncology department feel that this has not been prioritised within University Hospital Galway, UHG, management or the Saolta Hospital Group.

Can I have an update on plans for the medical oncology and the radiation services? Building is progressing on this project. I also ask about the emergency department, which is critical, and which was described by the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, a great many years ago at this stage, as not being fit for purpose. Planning permission has still not being granted, never mind a sod turned or a block laid.