Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have more doctors and nurses in the service. What we need from HSE management is appropriate management of the most valuable resource in the health service, the human resource, to make sure it is deployed in the most efficient way possible to deal with patients in the most humanitarian and effective way.

There is another issue - capacity. We have been reversing the trend, the result of a decision taken by a previous Administration to reduce hospital capacity at a time when the resources available to the State were plentiful. Since 2014 we have been reversing it and increasing hospital capacity. It is not, however, like flicking a switch to open hospital beds. When hospital beds are opened, doctors, nurses and other supporting staff are needed. We have opened and will in a short time open additional acute hospital beds, all of which, collaboratively, will I hope address the issues to which the Deputy has referred.

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