Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I want to bring up next the incessant issue of University Hospital Limerick, UHL, overcrowding on trolleys.

At the outset, I will mention that I found myself in the accident and emergency department and the Minister was in touch at me when I was in the hospital. I was in there on New Year's Eve with a rumbling appendix which nearly burst but the staff got it out in time. They were incredible. I saw the best and I will not say it was so bad the evening I was in there. The staff made me aware of that. It was one of those quieter nights in the accident and emergency department, which are not that common. On New Year's Eve, it got busier as the night went on. I was on a trolley for two and half days. I was not in pain and I was hooked up to drips and getting good care. I am very grateful to the staff. Yet, I could see the very significant limitations and challenges the staff were facing on the ward.

We, in the mid west, believe - I have had this conversation with the Minister many times - that alleviating that funnelled pressure which UHL experiences day in, day out, not just at peak times of the year but every day of the year, and the solution to that is to unlock the greater potential of Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's Hospital. The medical assessment units and local injuries units there have been very successful. The Minister has been down to visit them and has seen them working to the hilt.

Will the Minister give positive consideration to further increasing the operational hours of the local injury units and the medical assessment units to further unburden some of that pressure felt at UHL? Additionally, when he is on the road throughout the country, he has often given the good example of the Reeves centre at Tallaght University Hospital. Surely, the likes of UHL, or some hospital in the mid-west, could look at decanting a ward or two off the hospital campus, perhaps a little way down the road. There are plenty of commercial properties, similar to what happened with the Reeves centre, in the Limerick area. Will the Minister consider that? Anything that frees up bed space in the hospital ecosystem ensures a better through-flow in accident and emergency.