Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I thank Deputy Adams for raising this issue. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, is not in a position to take the debate, but I will do so on his behalf.

The incident raised by the Deputy related to a patient who presented to the emergency department of Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital with symptoms unrelated to TB. In all, the patient spent five days in the emergency department. During his time there, he was given a chest X-ray and was found to have TB. Following the discovery of TB, appropriate isolation and treatment commenced.

During the period that the patient spent in the emergency department, three patients were identified as potentially having had contact with him for more than ten hours. They have been contacted, counselled and offered testing for TB. All staff with potential contact have been offered counselling and TB testing. Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital has reassured the public about the incident, saying that contact had been made with the patients involved. The HSE is satisfied that the incident has been appropriately handled from the points of view of infection control and contact tracing.

While it is important that any public concern be allayed, I will address the wider issue of emergency department waiting times. The Minister does not consider it acceptable that a patient should wait five days. To tackle unacceptably long waiting times in emergency departments, he set about establishing the special delivery unit, SDU, immediately following his appointment. Its aim is to unblock access to acute services by improving the flow of patients through the system. The SDU is focusing initially on emergency departments and will be working to support hospitals in addressing excessive waiting times for admission to hospital.

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