Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and the Secretary General, Mr. Watt. I acknowledge the tremendous success of the vaccination roll-out and programme and its uptake around the country. Everybody can be rightly proud of the team within the HSE and Department of Health.

I also welcome and acknowledge the success of the heart health diagnostic pilot whereby GPs can refer their patients with suspected heart failure directly to the primary care teams for tests and diagnostics. That is healthcare in action and working. I will mention one bit of testimony from a friend of mine whose mother was referred by a GP for an ultrasound to a facility in Santry connected to Beaumont Hospital. She was in and out in 15 minutes. Again, that is public healthcare working correctly and properly. It is important to put that on the record.

I welcome the plans for the elective units in Galway, Dublin and Cork. I understand and welcome that the Minister is bringing that proposal to Cabinet tomorrow. I am sure he will not want to go into too much detail about what is in it and I understand that. As Deputy Colm Burke mentioned, the facilities planned are day-only beds. This is not what the Saolta University Health Care Group has indicated is needed. It has made that clear. We have been led to believe, for example, that knee and hip operations would be carried out in these new elective facilities, which I do not think is feasible in a day-only facility. Perhaps we could get some clarity on that. Is there a commitment to overnight beds in the national development plan, NDP, for University Hospital Galway, either in the elective centres or elsewhere over the course of the plan?