Dáil debates

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Cancer Services: Motion (Resumed)

 

8:00 pm

Photo of Pádraic McCormackPádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I speak from the Galway perspective and will outline the difficulty the Minister's proposal will create at University College Hospital, Galway, UCHG. Already this year there are proposals for closure of some wards and theatres at the hospital for the month of August, basically due to financial considerations. If a centre of excellence is to be provided in Galway, which, as stated in our motion, we support, funding will have to be ring-fenced for the purpose. Our motion states existing safe and high-quality cancer services should be retained at Mayo and Sligo general hospitals and that all centres of excellence and satellite units should be subject to an annual audit by the Health Information and Quality Authority. Despite assurances by speakers on the Government side, such a system is not in place. This is the crux of the problem.

I cannot understand how the plans for an expanded centre of excellence will work at UCHG. Already the staff — including doctors and nurses — is working under severe strain. Our spokesperson on health, Deputy Reilly, outlined some figures in the debate last night that merit repeating. He quoted the following:

We enclose the figures for the number of patients waiting on trolleys for an inpatient bed in the [emergency department] at UHG for the month of April 2008. You will see that this month we have had a total of 444 patients on trolleys at 9 am [throughout the month]. This compares to a total of 188 for the same period in 2007. This is an increase of 136% at a time when the HSE is meant to be moving towards a zero tolerance for trolley waits in Emergency Departments, as recommended by the Task Force Report.

Deputy Reilly suggested that the overcrowding at UCHG is seriously affecting patient care, as I know from experience. Overcrowding and the placing of patients on trolleys has been highlighted continuously by me and the staff at the hospital over several years. Despite our best efforts, no steps have been taken to address this serious issue.

To give an example of how circumstances are worsening, in the first four months of this year there were 1,283 patients on trolleys at 9 a.m. compared to 890 for the same period last year. The problem is getting worse by the day. All those patients were on trolleys overnight, in some cases for more than 30 hours. How does the Minister propose to eliminate this serious situation before she creates a centre of excellence? This is the crucial question for Galway.

At present, one cannot get into the car park at the hospital at any time of the day without encountering serious queuing delays. Alternatively, one is obliged to drive out of the city to park and then walk or get a taxi to the hospital. There is double parking, parking on yellow lines etc. and one cannot park a bicycle at the hospital at present.

The centre of excellence should have been built as a purpose-built building at Merlin Park Hospital, where facilities would be available and where all the major roads lead——

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