Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleagues in supporting the motion proposed by Deputy Kelleher. I want to focus in my remarks on the impact these difficulties are having on Letterkenny General Hospital, which is in my constituency. The staff of the hospital - the nurses and doctors and their managers - have been doing their absolute utmost over the last two weeks to try to deal with the increasing pressures they are encountering day in, day out. The number of people on trolleys at the hospital has decreased to just two today, thankfully. The number in question was 11 yesterday. It was 15 the day before that and it was 19 on Monday. Last Friday, it was 23, with a total of 31 waiting. It has decreased now because all other scheduled operations in the hospital have had to be cancelled.

I will give the Minister of State an example. A man in his early 70s has been waiting two years to have his hip done. He is in exceptional pain. He had an appointment for such an operation cancelled once previously. It has been cancelled again in the last week to allow those who are coming through the doors of the hospital's accident and emergency department to be accommodated. His plight pales by comparison with the plight of many exceptionally sick people who are coming through those doors to look for help. They are hoping for assistance because they are more vulnerable than they have ever been in their lives. The doctors and nurses who want to be able to assist them are not able to take them inside, give them beds and treat them as they require. Instead, these patients have to wait hours to be seen. They have to wait hours not to get a bed but to get a trolley.

All of this comes down to the Government's unfortunate decision not to fund the hospital system properly. It has failed to ensure sufficient nursing staff, doctors and beds are available to deal with this crisis when it arises. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, spent three years blaming the previous Government for the difficulties in the health service. I see he has moved on from that in the last week.

When challenged in the past week about his promise that never again would we have 500 people on trolleys, he moved on from that excuse to blaming the new Minister. He stated that he knew nothing about it and would not be able to answer questions and that the questioners would have to ask the Minister, Deputy Varadkar. The current Minister's policy seems to be that, if he tells us something will be bad before it gets bad, it might be regarded as competence. Indeed, it is a relief to many after having Deputy Reilly telling people for three years that everything would be okay.

The reality has been different. Instead of dealing in the budget with the many people who have been waiting weeks for fair deal scheme approval so that they might leave hospitals and free up beds, the Government chose to spend the extra funding available to it on other issues, for example, reducing the top rate of tax by 1%. Services, beds, doctors and nurses for the elderly and sick in, for example, Letterkenny General Hospital's accident and emergency department were not chosen.

I will highlight two issues that present particular difficulty for Letterkenny General Hospital. When there is a national staff shortage, it is more acute in regional areas. Letterkenny General Hospital is dealing with this crisis. Although it has approval for 16 medical registrars, it only operates with six. This is the result of mismanagement, in that the hospital service did not ensure staff were in place in time to assist in the crisis. Due to the failure of the Ministers, Deputies Reilly and Varadkar, to ensure that the management was in place to deal with the situation, the hospital is stretched.

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