Dáil debates

Thursday, 19 January 2017

12:15 pm

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to ask about the ongoing situation in South Tipperary General Hospital and the general crisis in accident and emergency departments. South Tipperary General Hospital, formerly known as St. Joseph's and still called that in Clonmel, which the Minister, Deputy Harris, has visited, is a very old hospital.

First, I wish to salute and pay tribute to the front-line staff - doctors and nurses - all other staff and the management for the tremendous work they do there on a daily basis in appalling conditions. They see no end to or relief in the chronic overcrowding, the bed crisis and the lack of capacity. The hospital just does not have the capacity to deal with the influx of patients, especially since the accident and emergency department in Nenagh was closed. The hospital has a huge catchment area which includes parts of Deputy Mary Butler's constituency of Waterford. The situation is at crisis point.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, visited recently and there was a promise of a patient hotel. It never arrived and we knew that it would not because there had not even been planning meetings about it. We had the announcement eight days ago of 11 extra beds in an alcove off a corridor. It now transpires that they are not beds but trolleys that will just be shoved into an alcove and patients will be left there, in many cases without blankets or pillows. Patients have to use their own coats. I have seen elderly men and women with no pillows and family members going out to buy some for them. It is appalling - the conditions are almost Third World-like.

I appeal to the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, to do something. Is the latter going to end up like his predecessor, Deputy Leo Varadkar, totally captured by the HSE officials? Deputy Varadkar has escaped, has gotten a new lease of life and freedom and the best of luck to him. He was captured by the officials, as is the current Minister. Every parliamentary question that is submitted to the Department of Health is sent to the HSE for answer while we have all of these scandals, one after the other.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, visited the hospital in Cashel and was shocked at the conditions there. We were told that less than €15 million was spent there. However, the Committee of Public Accounts decided this morning to investigate it at my request because €22.4 million was spent but it is a patient-free zone. No patient will be allowed into that hospital. There are no beds and even the lift was removed. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark with regard to the HSE.

Two former Ministers for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar and Senator James Reilly, said that the HSE would be disbanded, as did two former taoisigh, former Deputies Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen. Somebody has to take control of the HSE because, as I have said numerous times, it is an organisation that is unfit for purpose. It has cannibalised itself with officialdom and is not serving the public. The patient seems to be the last person that is considered or respected by the HSE and the situation in Cashel demonstrates that quite clearly. Cashel is only 15 miles from Clonmel. We were promised step-down beds in Cashel to relieve the pressure on the hospital in Clonmel but instead of that, it was stripped of all its medical and surgical equipment. Even the lift was removed. The patient seems to be the last person in whom we are interested. Officials are ruling the roost.

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