Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I raise a matter of huge importance to east Galway, where there is grave fear that Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe will be downgraded. This concern has come to the fore because of a public demonstration to be held next Sunday in St. Michael's Square, Ballinasloe, which I expect will be attended by thousands of people.

Portiuncula general hospital is important to five or six adjoining counties. The hospital serves counties Galway, Roscommon, Offaly, Longford and Laois, as well as parts of County Clare and several other areas. The people served by the hospital want a top-of-the-range surgical hospital with modern accident and emergency facilities and the preservation and extension of the hospital's wonderful maternity unit, which is the jewel in the crown and where a record number of babies were born in the past three years. The maternity unit is now regarded as one of the most up-to-date maternity facilities. We also want support for the day care services, cardiology department and all the facilities of a good general hospital. Not alone do we want to hold services at the hospital. We want them improved. We hope that the configuration of hospital services will include Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe at the level I mentioned.

One of the reasons the unions, many staff members and the general population of the area have become jittery in the past three or four weeks is that the attitude of the HSE seems to be that a new general manager is about to be appointed who will have direct responsibility for the University College Hospital Galway, Merlin Park University Hospital, Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe and Roscommon hospitals. It is felt rightly or wrongly that under those circumstances Ballinasloe Hospital may be downgraded.

A matter that seems to be cropping not only in Ballinasloe Hospital but in many other hospitals concerns the lines of communications from the top to bottom, namely from the HSE down to the various staffing levels. For some strange reason the HSE is not able to tell everybody concerned the story as it applies to him or her. There is always a section in an institution such as this that has not been well briefed about its future and people cannot be blamed for thinking the worst if they have not been told exactly what is happening. I hope that this matter will be addressed. With all means of communications available today, that should not be a problem. I spent three or four hours with representatives of the HSE at a meeting of Joint Committee on Health and Children yesterday dealing with the medical card fiasco and I do not believe the people in the HSE are listening to anybody.

I hope the Minister of State will be able to tell me tonight that this progressive hospital will continue on the graph it is on and that it will continue to provide the professional facilities we all want. It is a centre of excellence in terms of the service it provides. University College Hospital Galway is also a centre of excellence in its own right and we are lucky to have the two hospitals where they are located. I would like a commitment from the Minister of State tonight regarding this hospital, which would prove that the rumours believed by many people in the general area are not correct, but I have to be convinced of that. When one hears rumours sometimes murky work can be going on behind the scenes about which we do not know.

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