Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Deputy’s concerns on this matter. She has addressed specific questions to me but I do not have a reply to them because they were not part of her original question to the Department. If her question had been more detailed, I would have been able to get a more specific response. I can only give her a response to what she submitted in her original question.

CHO area 2 is receiving €1.8 million specifically for University Hospital Galway to provide six new home care packages each week from October to February. This will provide for 114 new home care packages over the winter period. Intensive home care packages are being provided to 32 clients in that area who require considerable levels of resources and who would, in the absence of this support, be admitted to long-stay residential care or would have remained in an acute hospital.

University Hospital Galway is in receipt of transitional care beds throughout the course of the year and averages 16 approvals per week. Transitional care beds support patients who have been deemed fit for discharge but may be awaiting a specific bed in a long-term care facility, or some degree of convalescence prior to returning home. The hospital is also supported by the provision of short-stay public beds throughout the Galway and Mayo region.

Similar to all acute hospitals, we will keep the situation in Galway under constant review in line with the winter initiative plan.

See this speech in context