Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this very urgent and important debate on the deplorable overcrowding being experienced in our hospital emergency departments. We have also had a record number of people on trolleys in recent days. We have seen further delays in scheduling hospital appointments which will result in more overcrowding. We also have the failure of the Government and the HSE to deal adequately with the problem.

This is a national emergency and something we have to deal with. We cannot hang around on the issue for any longer. Two things will resolve the issue, as the Government knows. We need to provide more beds and increase front-line staff immediately to ease the overcrowding. We also need to restore the number of beds funded under the national home support scheme to at least the 2013 level. While there are other issues, those are the two key things if we are serious about resolving the issue.

On Tuesday, 6 January, the nursing home sector surveyed 442 private and voluntary nursing homes to ascertain the number of unoccupied beds. Within the 277 nursing homes that responded to the survey, 1,261 beds were unoccupied. While we all recognise it is a complex problem, there is another angle. If hundreds of people are stuck in accident and emergency departments and we have these wealthy private hospitals a kilometre or two away, why are we not looking at using them in times of crisis, with their plush accident and emergency departments and empty beds? Why do we not look at that as part of the strategy? When in a crisis or a battle, it is necessary to look at the serious options as well.

It is also important to look at the issue of delayed discharges from hospitals, which is being ignored by many people. The figure for delayed discharges from our hospitals was 782 in October, rising to 800 during December.

In addition to criticising the Government, I have also outlined some ideas to get on and deal with the crisis in our accident and emergency departments. Let us have a bit of respect for patients and particularly for senior citizens and those with intellectual disabilities.

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