Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputies Murphy O'Mahony, Browne, Butler, Breathnach, Rabbitte, Murphy and Scanlon.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. It is timely in the sense that patients and staff in our emergency departments throughout the country have gone through horrific times in recent weeks. Unfortunately, while we have heard talk about planning, I believe most of the planning was around spin rather than the actual implementation of substantial issues to address overcrowding in our emergency departments in the window after Christmas and the start of the new year. Almost every year in recent years we have consistently seen bedlam and chaos in our emergency departments from the first Tuesday of the new year and flowing out through January and February. It is beyond me. I cannot understand why no system is in place other than the pretence of winter-proofing in September and October. Press releases are turned out with claims of winter-proofing and that we are going to be ready for the winter flu and the challenges that are thrown at the health services in January.

We know that if we do the same thing over and over again, we will get a consistent result. That is a failure of management at the most senior levels in the HSE. However, the Minister has to take some political responsibility for it. He is in place in the Government. It must take responsibility for the difficulties with regard to the lack of capacity not only in our emergency departments, but to the flow of patients through hospitals.

There is no point in the Minister publishing a bed capacity review in the coming weeks if he does not immediately start assessing where he can identify in the short term wards in hospitals throughout the country that would be suitable for opening. This should happen with minimal capital investment in the coming short period coupled with the increase in staff recruitment processes to man those beds. There are longer term implications with regard to capital development of new hospital builds in the State over a longer period. There is no point in us being here this time next year and saying that the bed capacity review has highlighted something that we intend to fund in the years ahead. We need immediate efforts to pinpoint the pinch areas in our hospitals that cause overcrowding on a continual basis. The crucial period is the time immediately after Christmas and in the early new year. It is the same period year in, year out. Today, I predict that if the Minister does nothing, as has been the case in recent years, we will again be here this time next year talking about bedlam and chaos in our hospitals throughout the country in 2019. We will talk of patients waiting inordinate periods with poor health outcomes because of those delays.

I urge the Minister to take on board the views expressed in the motion. We understand the constraints the State has in terms of funding. However, there can be quick wins in identifying closed wards or wards that have been converted in hospitals throughout the country. We need to identify them early and we need capital investment to open them up. Long-term bed capacity requirements will have to be addressed over a longer period.

See this speech in context