Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Looking at the challenges that we faced last year as part of the plan, are there proposals in relation to what we could do differently? I am thinking in terms of supports for those young mothers who were in that situation out of hours, such as the ability to telephone someone to ask if something is normal, not normal or whatever. Maybe there is something that could be done in that regard.

Lastly, on accident and emergency, we talked about people arriving at accident and emergency and the reasons for that, etc. One can give various reasons. The HSE spoke about the age profile. I will give an example of one challenging accident and emergency situation, that is, the eye and ear hospital. Someone mentioned earlier the case of an elderly person. I know of a case of a 96-year-old woman who arrived at that hospital. Earlier that day, she had got two injections in her eye due to a macular problem with the possibility of losing her eye. She had a bad reaction to it and her family rang up the hospital. There is a triage system within the hospital. It finishes at 5 p.m. You cannot walk into the hospital and that is why I want to address it. That is a challenge in itself. Where do people go if they have that difficulty? That woman was in the hospital system, within the eye and ear hospital, that morning but she had a bad reaction with pus coming out of the eyes. She was in incredible pain. The woman has a high tolerance of pain. The family brought her in. They were literally parked outside the hospital. You cannot get in because the triage stops at 5 p.m. The accident and emergency still works within the system. It is still dealing with patients inside. I am wondering about challenges such as I outline. That 96-year-old woman had her daughter with her and the daughter was there to advocate on behalf of her mother. Her mother was sitting on the bench, crying and in a lot of pain. The good news is that she was eventually seen.

There are challenges within the system in that regard and I am just highlighting the one I am aware of.

The witnesses might outline some of their ideas regarding the capital programme for building more beds into the system, or if they have anything to say in respect of the viruses.