Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I tuned in to the meeting from my office. I will go over a couple of issues. I did a cursory search through the most recent news reports on ambulances, various delays and so on. At Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, we had 11 ambulances parked outside the emergency department with people waiting for five hours to be admitted. We have variations of that elsewhere. I pulled up reports this morning about hospitals in Tullamore and Dublin. Where is the resolution to this in the Sláintecare process? It seems to me the ambulance situation is getting worse rather than better. We had 11 ambulances outside the hospital in Drogheda and I need not even mention Navan hospital, which is being downgraded this week, with 999 calls to be transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. This week, doctors in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital wrote a letter stating they simply do not believe they will be able to cope with that. How will we get to where we need to be in this process? I am sure the answer will be to pump more money into it but the issue is across the board, with ambulances unable to access the services in the hospitals to which they are being directed.