Dáil debates

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

12:10 pm

Photo of Gerry AdamsGerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The number of citizens lying on trolleys in hospitals this morning stands at 520. Within my constituency, there are 40 people on trolleys in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Conditions in the emergency department at Beaumont Hospital are now so bad that a senior emergency department doctor in a letter to hospital management and the HSE described them as the equivalent of health-care Guantanamo. According to Eilish O'Regan in the Irish Independentthis morning, the letter was written in December and prior to the escalation of the current crisis. The doctor says that critically ill patients are receiving blood transfusions on chairs and heart attack patients are regularly treated on chairs. He struggled to get a trolley for a man with liver failure while two patients with advanced cancer were doomed to sit on chairs for 24 hours. He had to resuscitate a patient who suffered a cardiac arrest after being placed in an annex corridor.

A HSE report shows that there are 705 hospital patients who no longer need to be in hospital. They should be discharged to nursing homes, rehabilitation beds or their own houses with home care packages. However, the Government will not put the money into that. Age Action Ireland has described these patients as prisoners of the State. Will the Government now prioritise a solution to this crisis by immediately increasing the number of step-down beds and ensuring the fair deal scheme is adequately funded? Will the Taoiseach speed up funding for house adaptations and home help packages?

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