John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At a press conference to rename University Hospital Waterford in May 2014, the then Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, and the Secretary General of the Department of Health again committed the Government to funding these academic posts.

Professor John Higgins said that recruiting and retaining clinicians of the highest quality would require the teaching, training, research and innovation that would be needed for the full integration of the mission of that hospital.

I do not know if the Taoiseach is aware that Waterford has had great difficulty attracting consultants in the intervening years. Such is the lack of, for example, dermatology consultants that the service has basically shut down. Only emergency cases are being seen and people must travel to Cork. The rapid access clinic for prostate cancer experiences major delays because no consultant urologist is in place. We regularly have the worst accident and emergency overcrowding in the country, yet we cannot fill the consultant post in emergency medicine. The list goes on.

The failure to sanction these academic posts is hampering the hospital in competing for the recruitment of the best clinical talent available. The research opportunities that would present through these academic posts are not forthcoming. Patients are not benefiting from the latest clinical expertise and knowledge they were promised. Dr. Murphy in UCC wrote to the Department of Health about what he perceives to be the broken promises made to the people of Waterford. I have been told that letter upon letter has gone unacknowledged and unanswered.

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