Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's reply is absolutely disappointing and unacceptable. As the Taoiseach, the HSE, the management of the hospital and the management of the south-south west hospital group well know, the situation in South Tipperary General Hospital is absolutely atrocious.

Everyone accepts the hospital's lack of bed capacity. This may be the fifth year that various Ministers and Ministers of State gave promised additional beds at the hospital. It is time to bite the bullet. The patients attending South Tipperary General Hospital are entitled to good quality hospital services but they are not getting them.

I understand that a senior medical professional from the South/South West hospital group carried out a forensic analysis of the hospital's bed capacity and has accepted that 35 to 40 additional acute beds are urgently needed at the hospital. I believe the report has gone to the HSE and that senior management of the HSE is now sitting on it, so to speak. Will the Taoiseach ensure the report is acted upon and made public. Approval should be given for beds at South Tipperary General Hospital, not at the Mater Hospital or anywhere else nationally but at South Tipperary General Hospital where there is an agreed and accepted necessity for additional beds.

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