Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are various commitments within the programme for Government to protect our most vulnerable citizens. The issue I am raising relates to psychiatric care and I want to speak about the south east in particular. SIPTU staff in the department of psychiatry in St. Luke's General Hospital in Kilkenny have lodged their intention to take industrial action over patient safety concerns. This department consists of 44 beds, but due to overcrowding in May and June, patients have been admitted and then told they have to sleep on couches. If the matter is not resolved, shift nurses in the department will not take up duty until such time as the numbers are reduced to agreed safe levels.

We cannot accept a situation in which our psychiatric nurses are forced daily to endure unfair and unsafe working conditions. We owe it to the very dedicated staff and to their patients to reduce admission numbers to previously agreed safe levels. This has been an ongoing problem for a long time in the south east. As I have said, there are 44 beds in St. Luke's in Kilkenny. Patients are being sent from all over the south east. There are as many as 50 or 60 patients there at one time, some sleeping in armchairs. This is not good enough for these very vulnerable people.

We need a bed manager for the whole south east. There is a commitment to have 14 units in Clonmel. The sooner the HSE intervenes and opens these and relieves these patients, the better. We are going to have industrial action in St. Luke's within a fortnight if the Minister and the HSE do not intervene.

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