Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the issue of the health service. The provision of health and hospital services are probably the most important issues regularly raised by my constituents in Louth. There is no doubt that the health system in Ireland is far from perfect. Waiting list numbers need to be reduced, the number of patients waiting on trolleys is still too high and there are too many unfilled vacancies. The easy and popular thing to do is to criticise the health service. Simply attacking the HSE yet offering no realistic or viable alternative is a tactic used by the Opposition benches, in particular Sinn Féin. This is of no benefit to anyone and it is simply a political point-scoring exercise.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in my constituency is regularly in the headlines because of the number of patients waiting on trolleys. It is an issue, but it should not be the only reason the hospital is in the news. It is widely accepted that once a patient gets past the initial admissions process, the treatment he or she receives is excellent. I do not hear any patients complain about the treatment they have received, only the admissions procedures. The system needs to be examined and new ideas considered.

I know from my investigations into this matter from my time on the Joint Committee on Health and Children that in many cases patients do not need to visit accident and emergency departments. In many cases, a visit to a local GP would have ensured patients received the necessary treatment and avoided waiting times in accident and emergency departments such as that in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

Another factor that needs to be examined is that at times patients are not aware of services available in the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk. In many cases, patients could have visited the hospital to get the treatment they required instead of going to Drogheda. The perception among many people is that the Louth County Hospital is closed, but it is not. Since 2010, it has worked tirelessly to develop and expand its services. It treated more than 20,000 patients in 2015 alone. The minor injuries unit was established in 2010 and in 2015 treated more than 9,000 patients. If the service were not available, those patients would have to attend Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and put further pressure on it. The unit recently expanded its opening hours and the age of the patients it can treat.

The problem in Louth is that not enough people know the unit is open and instead travel to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital when they could have instead visited the minor injuries unit in Dundalk. We need to raise awareness of the service. I have been in regular contact with the hospital and its manager, Louise O'Hare, about this issue. The Louth County Hospital, far from being closed, provides many valuable services to the community. It currently has 53 inpatient beds over three wards. It has an eight-bed multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation unit under the clinical leadership of a consultant stroke physician.

There are five palliative care support beds for access from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and 34 inpatient step-down beds for those patients who are medically discharged from the hospital. There were five beds for medical rehabilitation, and these have recently been increased to ten. In addition to the above, there is a very active and busy medical day services unit which includes a direct access consultant geriatrician providing a one-stop assessment for GP referrals. This service has been increased from three to five days a week and the waiting list has been reduced from 15 months to 12 weeks. There is also a venesection service, with more than 1,600 procedures carried out in 2015. In November 2015, the diabetic department was relocated to a newly refurbished standalone unit incorporating a diabetic nurse specialist, an antenatal diabetic nurse dietitian and a podiatrist. This is the first unit of its kind in the region and there are plans to expand the service further. In addition to all of this, Louth County Hospital has a very busy day services unit, with more than 5,000 procedures carried out in 2015.

While all of the above is very welcome, I acknowledge that we all need to do more to make the health service more accessible and patient-friendly, particularly at the admission stage. This should not be a political issue; it is an issue on which we should all work together.

See this speech in context