Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope the debate this evening provides clarity as to when funding will be approved for Letterkenny University Hospital to provide nurses and support staff to facilitate the opening of the 20-bed short-stay ward as an addition to the hospital. Currently, the short-stay ward is being used temporarily for rehabilitation service patients while refurbishments are carried out in the rehab unit in St. Conal's hospital campus. Previously, the short-stay ward was operating as a full ward of the hospital pending the reopening of the haematology-oncology ward, in which there were 11 beds, as well as the coronary care unit, which had eight beds. Those two wards opened in summer, following the flooding, and the beds and staff from the short-stay ward transferred to the two newly-opened wards. That meant the short-stay ward was vacant. Since then, it has been used for rehabilitation patients who are due to return to St. Conal's by the end of December when the ward will, once again, be vacant and available for use.

To bring the short-stay ward into use to provide the 20 beds requires staffing. In June 2017, hospital management in Letterkenny submitted a request to the HSE for approval for the staff required to open the short-stay ward and provide the additional 20 beds. If open, the ward would enhance the hospital's capacity from 330 patients to 350. To bring that about, funding of €1.8 million was sought to hire 17 additional nurses, six health care assistants and four other staff. As the Minister of State knows from his work in the Department of Health, it takes time to put staff in place. Once approval is secured, it takes weeks or months to get to a situation where beds can be reopened. It usually takes at least four months. Nevertheless, Letterkenny has still not received approval from the HSE or, in particular, from the Government, which is responsible for providing the funding to the HSE to enable that to happen. As a result, 23 patients are waiting on trolleys for admission to Letterkenny University Hospital today. Yesterday, there were 25 such patients.

Since January 2017, 4,000 patients have had to wait on trolleys for access to a hospital bed. They were admitted by accident and emergency department consultants but no beds were available on 4,000 occasions so far this year. That is an increase from 2016, when just over 1,200 patients were obliged to wait on trolleys. As such, the numbers increased almost two and a half times between 2016 and 2017. The hospital's assessment shows that, on average, approximately 20 additional beds are required at a given time. The proposal put forward would deal with that and provide the additional beds. However, that will only happen if the Government gets its act together and provides the required funding. Why has the Minister of State sat on this for the last number of months? Even if the funding is given now, we will have to wait a further period because of the inaction of the Government regarding the approval. Can the Minister of State inform the House today whether the funding will be provided immediately and state that every effort will be made to ensure the additional 20 beds will be available at Letterkenny University Hospital after Christmas for Donegal patients?

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