Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A consultant urologist resigned in dramatic circumstances earlier in 2015. Neither Letterkenny University Hospital nor the Saolta hospital group has advertised for a replacement consultant urologist. As a result, urology is in real crisis in the hospital. I commend the Minister's officials for organising a meeting in February 2015. It was a good meeting at which solutions were tabled to address another crisis that had emerged in breast cancer care which was raised by the consultant there, Michael Sugrue. The meeting was attended by public representatives in Donegal and cancer campaign groups. We understood these solutions had been implemented but as we see from correspondence from the consultant breast surgeon there, Michael Sugrue to the Minister's officials, they have not been implemented. Letterkenny University Hospital is a hospital in crisis in Donegal. The management of Saolta is in denial and is telling us it has the resources it needs, everything is hunky-dory, there is nothing to see here and to move along. There are only two permanent consultant surgeons in the seventh largest hospital in the State serving 160,000 people. The rest are locums. Those surgeons are being told to pull back on elective surgeries to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of people on trolleys in winter. It is not good enough. The Minister is aware of the comments of the director general of the HSE, Tony O'Brien. We have a real crisis in our health service and we need solutions, not commentary. Will the Minister intervene in respect of the concerns of patients on the waiting lists in Donegal, which will continue to grow? Will he confront the management of Letterkenny University Hospital and the Saolta hospital group about their denials in terms of the resources they have when the problems are staring us in the face?

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