Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise the need for investment and expansion in the emergency department of Cavan General Hospital and the minor injury unit in Monaghan General Hospital. Cavan's emergency department is attended by approximately 32,000 patients each year. It is a busy and highly utilised service that is under huge pressure with its current layout and facilities. It has ten examination cubicles, which is clearly inadequate to deal with 32,000 patients. Admitted patients who do not get a bed on a ward are kept in the examination cubicles, further reducing the availability of examination beds and causing further delays in the assessment of new patients in the emergency department.

The resuscitation room is inadequate. There is one trolley space and no room to accommodate another trolley. It is not lead-lined and the radiology department is reluctant to do portable X-rays in that room for that reason. It is difficult for staff to manoeuvre around the room during cardiac resuscitations or when dealing with trauma patients. There is only one small triage room in a hospital and emergency department that has a throughput of 32,000 patients. It needs at least four triage cubicles. We need a minor operation theatre in the emergency department and we have no designated paediatric area in the emergency department which means, as the Minister of State knows, that children are currently assessed and treated alongside adults.

We have inadequate facilities for women who are pregnant or gynaecological patients. We have no appropriate isolation facilities in the emergency department. Our reception area is small and cramped and there is no privacy for patients. We have only three public toilets in the emergency department, which is insufficient for 32,000 patients annually. This is against a backdrop of staff working night and day, above and beyond the call of duty to take care of their patients. The Taoiseach said he wishes more people would use the minor injury units, such as in Monaghan, to help to cut back on waiting times in emergency departments, such as in Cavan General Hospital, but in 2011, the HSE cut the opening hours of Monaghan's minor injuries unit back from a good service from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week to a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. service from Monday to Friday. It is a ridiculous move when our local emergency department in Cavan General Hospital is overcrowded and working with inadequate facilities.

All of this is against a backdrop of appalling ambulance response times, particularly in Monaghan, where people are losing their lives. In recent times, a young father of two suffered a cardiac arrest in Ballybay, County Monaghan. He waited almost an hour and a half until the ambulance arrived. The doctor on call arrived after the ambulance. Tragically, that man lost his life before the ambulance made its journey to the nearest hospital. His family truly believes that he could still be here today if the ambulance response had been prompt on the night in question.

The RCSI hospital group has submitted an application for funding to the Department. Will the Minister approve that request? Will he extend the opening hours at the Monaghan minor injury unit and broaden the facilities that are available? Will the Minister and Minister of State meet with the family who lost their son that night because it took the ambulance so long to arrive at the scene of a dying man?

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